Is there such a thing as a good bodhran player?

[jqpublick]

Hi everybody;

So, question time. Perhaps a little off-topic, but as a lot of people seem to feel that dissing bodhran on this forum is okay, I think asking this question should be okay too. I'm not trying to start a fight -although I'm always up for a good land war in China- I'm trying to understand something that confuses me as a more-or-less beginningish player.

Is there such a thing as a good bodhran player? I mean, I think John Joe Kelly (from Flook) is a pretty damn good bodhran player, for example. There are others, too. I'd be happy to play with any good musician, but it seems that most folks here aren't too happy with even the concept of a drummer. So what is it, the poor timing of a lot of drummers, the preponderance of Them What Like To Smash Things in the bodhran-wannabies realm?

I'm being a little flippant here, but the question I put to you is a serious one; what is it about the bodhran that causes such incredible distain? Is it that the aesthetic of Trad music does not include a drum? Is it that bodhrans are tuned too low? Are the bodhran players the world over a newfangled intrusion and therefore something to be rejected as too ... audible? What is it?

I can understand the response to bad playing, especially bad drumming, but surely there are people here who either play the things (filled with shame, hiding in their basements, wailing in anger at the gods and fenceposts about their inability to play an essentially melodic instrument, brooding a la Grendel's Mom about their revenge, mostly by playing off the beat) or can understand why a drum might not be a bad thing. Surely? I mean, we'll sit and listen to those who are learning the pipes, and encourage them or gently correct glaring flaws in their technique, etc, but if a bodhran player is off even a little on a tune lips seem to curl at something approaching light speed.

I'll admit, I play and quite enjoy the bodhran. (I have instructed my ISP to prepare for clumps of mud and other, higher fecal coliform-count material to be flung this way, so my loins are girded. Vitrually, I mean. The other more special protection I used to wear is no longer required by law in these enlightened times.) I even think that well played, it can add to the music. Shocking, I know, but I'm nothing if not a maverick.

So what is it? Can anyone give me a realistic answer as to why the bodhran and the players are so distained in trad music? Or is it simply that Uilleann Pipes and bodhrans are some kind of wierd and dangerous matter/antimatter opposition; playing of both instruments in the same room at the same time causes worlds to collide, or what? I really do want to know.

Yours, cringing only slightly,

Mark

[noshinchan]

Don't understand the disdain myself. I just heard a very good one, playing with a variety of "sticks" in the Knoxville area. Plays with Four Leaf Peat and it adds a lot!!

Bob

[Uilliam]

I know of personally only 2 good Bodhran players in Glasgow ..there are obviously more but I havnae played with them.The 2 are Big Davy frae this board and Frankie McGuire.That is it... end of .
That doesnae mean to say that there aren't hundreds of the friggin things out there.I see enough of them at sessions but what I hear is absolute claptrap.So bad in fact that I am gonna start a campaign for the Prevention of Cruelty to Goats dead ones as well as live ones.Nuff said.
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam

[AaronMalcomb]

An intelligently posed question to a perennial ITM issue.

ITM is about the melody of the tunes which already have very strong rhythms. If a tune is being played well, it doesn't need rhythmic accompaniment. That is the fundamental issue.

Another issue is that the bodhran looks easy to play but is not. It's easy to flip the tipper onto the head and make noise but to play subtle rhythm structures with dynamics on a well tuned drum is no mean feat.

The other issue with the bodhran is that the percussion is more accessible to people unfamiliar with the music. So if somebody doesn't know about how reels and jigs should sound or can appreciate good piping tone or technique (or whatever instrument), it's easy to be impressed by fast, thumping percussions.

So the unfortunate circumstance is that you get people who are new to the music who can't control the bodhran jumping in and trying to play a very idiomatic and complex music on an idiomatic and complex instrument that isn't really crucial to the tradition.

Rhythm is very tenable too. It takes a bit of skill to play rhythm in unison and it doesn't take much to make it all fall apart. That and we melody players take our efforts very seriously (too seriously in some cases) so we get cantankerous when somebody complicates those efforts.

Not to say that good bodhran playing isn't enjoyable or that it doesn't contribute to the music.

Cheers,
Aaron

[Joseph E. Smith]

Rhythm is very tenable too. It takes a bit of skill to play rhythm in unison and it doesn't take much to make it all fall apart.

There are plenty of us piper types who can't stay on rhythm, time, meter... what have you.....and yes, I am Joseph Smith, and I have no rhythm.

[s1m0n]

Forget about good bodhran players. Virtuousity in bodhran playing is to be suppressed, not encouraged. Few things are more annoying than a virtouso goatkeeper with the urge to prove it.

Instead, go looking for taste in bodran playing. That's a far rarer quality. My favorite's Peadar Mercier, who played the drum on the early cheiftains records.

[marcpipes]

Recent paintings aside, I really do like the sound of a good bodhran. I've tried to play it and have about the chance of a f*rt in a windstorm of ever being good. Some(not all) of pipers' disdain for bodran may be a carry over from guys who first played in highland pipe bands where you learn to hate your drum section because they just won't quit the rar-a-tat when you're trying to tune up. Even rock musicians I know have to deal with the constant tapping of the hyperactive monkey on the stool behind them while guitars tune and sound checks are going on. The drummer in most forms of music becomes and easy target for ribbing. And if you offend them and they walk out, you can still go on playing.

[No E]

To paraphrase Winton Marsalis... "We hate bodhrán players, but we love musicians who play bodhrán."

Donnchadh Gough of Danú and L.A.'s own Joey Abarta come to mind as musicians who also happen to play bodhrán (and they both play the pipes too).

No E

[josh perkins]

The bodhran is no damn different from any other musical instrument--sh*t players sound like sh*t. Listen to Christy Moore doing "Green grow the rushes-o" with his drum and ask me again if there are any good bodhran players.

[djm]

I think there is a lot of aping going on with the snide remarks. Ennis didn't like them, and therefore it seems a lot of people think its open season on goat beaters. There's lots of good "dumb drummer" jokes, so these are easily transferred to bodhráni.

Perhaps there is an element of personal taste involved here, too. I like a deep undercurrent of bodhrán, as in Planxty or Danú. Peadar Mercer with the Chieftains sounds to me more like someone rattling old garbage tin lids. I have recordings of bodhrán accompaniment back to 1928, so you can't say its anything new, maybe just not common or popluar before Ceóltoirí Chualann.

As mentioned above, a player who can't keep rhythm, only knows one pattern, plays too loud for an accompaniest, or jumps in on every tune whether it is appropriate or not, will earn the ill will of any session.

djm

[Uilliam]

The bodhran is no damn different from any other musical instrument--.

Well it is different in many ways.It is not very musical for a start.
Originaly called a poor mans tambourine thence bourine and possibly fancied up to bodhran.
Although around for many centuries(possibly) it only made its entrance into Irish Music in the 1960's via Sean O Riada who popularised it.It was used before that with mummers.If played sensitively then it is good.
But there are too many eejits wandering around who simply because they have one,feel it is ok to bang away at it.
There is one geek at the moment who comes along to the Sunday session and has not one bodhran (which he can NOT play) but two!!)he would be better aff banging them together cymbal fashion... at least we would know that he wasnae serious,
but no he sits there and tunes the thing then selects a beater frae a belt pouch he has full o them... then when he has suitably impressed no one he proceeds to beat the puirr wee dead animal even more to death.I am so tempted to get a stick and beat him in the same tempo!
As ye can guess I get kinda emotional when I see such blatent cruelty meeted out to puir wee beasties that it makes me cry

As for aping Seamus I think that is a bit rich..When ye have the experience of trying to play against bad banging then it is not aping to say so,of course ye hear good playing on most records,but in the real world of live music there is more bad than good.This is not about jokes bad or otherwise but a genuine frustration at sessions being ruined by clueless clowns..
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam

[Jim McGuire]

The argument is, in a world with fiddles, flutes, and Irish pipes that can play some 15,000 melodies, what else is needed. Throw in sean nos singing for the songs and some dancing, you are wanting nothing. Harps were in there (1800) but that lineage and tradition more or less died out.

Bodhrans acceptance and increase is almost welcome compared to snare drums and a ceili band set up. The latter did fill a specific need before great sounds systems were prevalent.

[liestman]

To me the problem is this: A fair number of people are attracted to play Irish traditional music and want to join in. They see pipes and are told "21 years". They know violin (fiddle) is hard to play. And they could not play flute in school, although they gave it several weeks of lessons. Plus all those instruments cost a lot of money. And whistles, although cheap you have to actually learn each tune as a separate exercise. But man, for 100 bucks or less they figure they can get a drum (how hard can that be?) and instantly "know" every tune. So people looking for the smallest investment of time and money, buy a bodhran and kill the music.

We have a good bodhran player or two in my town and a whole bunch who seem to fall into my description above. I think THAT is the problem with bodhran players.

[PJ]

I went to a session in a pub in Montreal last year and counted not one but seven bodhrans. Like the guy in Glasgow, one lady arrived with 2 bodhrans (tuneable and non-tuneable). Absolutely ridiculous. Why, I just grabbed my bodhran and left.

But seriously, ONE bodhran player, who knows what he or she is at, can be a great addition to a session or trad group.

Who was it that said that the quality of a session is inversely proportional to the number of bodhran players present?

[Jim McGuire]

I call accordeons 'pipe killers' as the switch to that instrument contributed to lower numbers of pipers. Number of fiddle players (%) seems constant; flute players suffered in numbers, just like pipers, due to instrument cost and availability (and mtce issues for pipes). The growth for an easy-to-play instrument, the accordeon, with a stronger reed sound came at the expense of pipes and flutes.

The other compelling argument for people to adopt the bodhran is that you can display it on the wall proudly between 'gigs'.