Is there such a thing as a good bodhran player?

[Juan Pablo Plata]

Bodhran players usually are like actual pseudo-hippys with their "stupid" oriental drums, playing without rythm for seconds before they stop to smoke and then continue again... I´ve seen plenty of them...I studied Arts. But if you hear a person from, let´s say Marruecos, with that "stupid" drum...well, it´s hard to believe. Just think of the indian tabla!! Incredible!!
Bodhran is a cheaper instrument than flutes, fiddles and of course uilleann pipes, and very simple to make it sound at first, this is what attract people to it. A fast way to seem a musician in the pub.
A bodhran is like the uilleann pipe, piano or fiddle. It doesn´t play alone.

Hi Joseph. Reeds are a real problem here. Actually my Preshaw reed doesn´t play well, and it has been raining for days (decent humidity), so just think in summer. 40º and a very dry weather, with strong temperature changes between day and night. Imposible. Only solution? Learn reedmaling and make them in that months. But it´s difficult being only piper here!! (except Charles Roberts)

[ausdag]

almost as much as the Kazoo does.

Oh, so yer havin' a go at my kazoo, now, are you?

djm

I used to have a kazoo....got it when I was about 6. It came with a bubble blowing kit from the toy shop, you know, with the jar of detergent and a couple of different shaped rings to blow the detergent into bubbles. Couldn't work out how to make bubbles with the kazzoo, but also couldn't work out why it emmitted a buzz sometimes. Was till about 20 years later that I realized it was a kazoo and that they're not for blowing bubbles through

[djm]

Kazoos can be a very technically challenging instrument. Mine comes apart so you can replace the membrane when required. Waxed paper seems to work bets.

djm

[marcpipes]

Okay, so here's one reason I asked. There's another thread in which marcpipes had done a painting of an UP player giving the finger to a bodhran player. It made me laugh, then frown, then laugh, then belatedly start thinking, "What is it that would cause such a reaction?" I'm not repeat not saying that this painting should not be or is insulting or anything like that. (Sorry, marc. I'm not trying to point you out or anything. You can throw the first Pooh-stick if you need vengance.) It made me smile, like I said. I play drums, lots of them and I love what can happen when any drum is played well.

No pooh sticks or vengance needed.
As I said earlier in this thread, I like the sound of a bodhran when played well.
What was my reason for making the painting? Pure materialism. I did it on commision in exchange for cane for reed making. I am an artistic whore and am available to make illustrations praising or insulting whatever my patrons wish, provided the price is right. The fact that I had fun doing it only adds to the enjoyment. Any offense caused is purely in fun and most mild in intent, and not meant to stereotype all bodhran players as rotund, fly winged wee folk who tend to break mushrooms by sitting on them. The communiques from offended wee folk on this matter have been few. No mushrooms were harmed in the making of this work.

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Now bear in mind that this whole Seamus-and-the-penknife-comment is in regard to his being accompanied by a particularly "off" player at a concert where he was as usual playing the pipes, solo. The punchline to the whole thing is that the "bodhran"-er in question was actually the sound of Seamus's foot tapping, being fed through the PA and bouncing off the back wall back up to the stage!
I have tapes of the man from 1964 where he's accompanied by guitarists - bluegrass players, not familiar with his idiom or repetoire but they plunk along unobtrusively enough and Seamus didn't whack them on the head for joining in - he gives one of them a solo, even.
Seamus also the Ha'Penny Bridge Quartet with Sean Keane, Liam O', and I think Sonny Brogan, accordionist. In the Folkways LP Irish Music in London Pubs he goes over the instruments played in ITM, regarding the accordion he admits its shortcomings but allows that it will "plug a gap," "I'd walk a long ways to hear an old melodeon." He prefered the tone of the old brass reed boxes I think, in the liners of the Gael Linn Tony MacMahon record he remarks on the vintage of the instrument (obtained from Joe Cooley) mellowing the tone, unlike the "hateful" modern accordion sound. I'm with him there all the way - what a great sound those old boxes had!
Liam O' says Seamus was a Planxty fan, too, as Josh mentions. Dunno exactly what he thought of how trad was developing, aside from disliking cocky young pipers who engaged in "antics on the chanter," things his father wouldn't have played.
Anyway anyway - my theory is that Irish trad started out very much focused on the solo performer, everyone had a song in them and that was very much solo stuff - the guitar hadn't been developed into its modern form and there weren't cheap instruments to be had mail order like happened later with accordions and whistles. Note that people didn't bring in guitars even when they were to be had for cheap in the 1920s - 1960s. In America some of the Sligo players used guitar on their 30s records, though. Better than the piano, perhaps! A mindset prevailed that the individual performer was what mattered, one piper had the old people in his audience shooing the others to keep quiet, for instance. I think this mentality prevailed for a long time even when the opportunity was there for more group playing or accompaniment. The use of bodhran on the old 78s could just as well have been an NYC innovation.

[Joseph E. Smith]

Okay, so here's one reason I asked. There's another thread in which marcpipes had done a painting of an UP player giving the finger to a bodhran player. It made me laugh, then frown, then laugh, then belatedly start thinking, "What is it that would cause such a reaction?" I'm not repeat not saying that this painting should not be or is insulting or anything like that. (Sorry, marc. I'm not trying to point you out or anything. You can throw the first Pooh-stick if you need vengance.) It made me smile, like I said. I play drums, lots of them and I love what can happen when any drum is played well.

No pooh sticks or vengance needed.
As I said earlier in this thread, I like the sound of a bodhran when played well.
What was my reason for making the painting? Pure materialism. I did it on commision in exchange for cane for reed making. I am an artistic whore and am available to make illustrations praising or insulting whatever my patrons wish, provided the price is right. The fact that I had fun doing it only adds to the enjoyment. Any offense caused is purely in fun and most mild in intent, and not meant to stereotype all bodhran players as rotund, fly winged wee folk who tend to break mushrooms by sitting on them. The communiques from offended wee folk on this matter have been few. No mushrooms were harmed in the making of this work.

I requested that the fairy piper flip the bird to the goat whacker... the idea appealed to me. I play the bodhran, and very well I might add, but that does not mean I would bring it into a session setting (yeah, like, I'd actually go to another one) and commence to a thumping on it.

I see poking fun at goat skinners in the same light as I view trombone jokes... funny, but still just a joke. Some instruments and their reputations (imagined or real) just scream to be made fun of... hell, look at all the bagpipe jokes out there.

[Mike Hulme]

Kazoos can be a very technically challenging instrument. Mine comes apart so you can replace the membrane when required. Waxed paper seems to work bets.

djm

Luxury,

All we had was a comb with a piece of toilet paper, but it was a kazoo to us.

[Joseph E. Smith]

Waxed paper seems to work bets.

djm

I never knew that the membrane from a Kazoo aided in wagering.... learn something new every day, I guess.

[djm]

Luxury,
All we had was a comb with a piece of toilet paper, but it was a kazoo to us.

Well, it is the professional model, after all. When one takes one's music seriously, one is obliged to obtain the best instrument available in order to bring to frui ... fru-fish ... froo-froo .... fish ..... fuu ..........

[billh]

Fu-frisson is the word you're searching for, I think.

[jqpublick]

Hey all:

There's no offence taken here, marc and Joseph. The painting made me laugh, too. It just was one of those things that makes you go "Hmmmm....". So I asked the question.

I think I got my answer; If you're a good bodhran player, you're at least tolerated (ex-hockey-playing flautists aside) and the bodhran by extension as well. If you're not a good player or you have bad manners or you're just a prick then you're not tolerated. And, by extension, the instrument becomes 'bad' too. Or the people in the session already hate bodhran so you're doomed from the beginning.

So: 'Be a gracious and attentive person, play incredibly well and don't go where you're not wanted' seems to pretty much cover it. Could someone explain the bit about the kazoos fits in again?


Mark

[djm]

Could someone explain the bit about the kazoos fits in again?

Oh, another kazoo-basher, eh?

djm

[Hans-Joerg]

I read this and especially am interested about the origin of the bodhrán (or PM´s tambourine). Now someone (up in Donegal) told me this:

...the bodhrán was an agricultural tool. I was further informed that the English translation that comes closest to naming this tool would be "sieve". A small shovel full of threshed grain was placed in the bodhrán. On a windy day the grain was tossed into the air and the wind blew the chaff away leaving the heavier corns to fall back in. For the rest of the year it hung on the wall from where it was sometimes taken down (unfortunately) and played as a drum. At first it was played with the hand and at a later stage with a "tipper" (bouncer).

Has anybody heard a similiar story? The fact that similiar "things" exist in many other cultures might support this.
Cheers,
Hans

[Hans-Joerg]

BTW: I thought you might like this.
One way to teach bodhrán-"players" moderacy and respect for the musicians in a seesion:

[img][img]http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/5636/bild243ui.th.jpg[/img]

[Uilliam]

If we move on to the post 1947 Language Act and look at the National Dictionary printed in 1981 bodrán becomes bodhrán1 Deaf person,Slow-witted person,dullard.bodhrán 2 Winnowing drum, 2(kind of)tambourine.

Uilliam

Hans if ye look at my earlier post ye will find that the Irish Dictionary said a Winnowing drum..Exactly what ye are talking about for seperating chaff frae grain.. I would like to winnow some o the players....
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam