Bodhran

Hi Bridget, welcome to Equipboard. It's nice to see some new faces :-) I haven't seen many of us bodhran players here - it's good to know I'm not the only "goat tickler" in the house.

My two bodhrans were gifted so I can't really offer advice on the best model other than to avoid those cheap touristy ones you see with celtic knots, harps or Guinness pints painted on them. The better ones will be made with goatskin and often have some mechanism to tighten the skin to compensate for humidity.

My first Bodhran was a birthday present from my mother shortly before she died and so because of its sentimental significance I was determined to learn how to play it properly. My main challenge was that as a young RAF Airman I had just been posted to Germany. Consequently there weren't a lot of teaching resources around. I was entirely self taught, mostly from reading a couple of books and then playing along to tapes and records... you could slow a 33rpm LP down to 16 rpm and it would play at half the speed and sound an octave lower. Those were the days before YouTube where you can now slow videos down in the settings.

That was how I got the basics down. Once I got passably competent I would play along to everything and anything I was listening to, which in that time and place included a lot of Eurodance and hardcore nosebleed rave music! After my 4 years "abroad" I got a posting to the northeast of Scotland. That gave me the opportunity to join in with local music sessions and attend the numerous TMSA folk festivals that happened all across Scotland throughout the summers.

By this time I had learned enough to keep tempo and throw in a few flourishes but sitting in on sessions and playing along with experienced musicians playing all the familiar folk standards was really where I learned my chops - I slowed up and got a lot more subtle and dynamic with my playing.

Towards the end of my time in Scotland was when the Titanic film was released and an unfortunate consequence of the "Third Class Dance" scene was an explosion in popularity of bodhrans, with hordes of maniacally enthused drum beaters surrounding the sessions and thrashing away at their goatskins as if the ship was going down - I saw more than a few sessions sunk this way.

So, the sign of a competent bodhran player in my view is one who knows when to back off, or even shut up altogether! You can bet that in any situation where a session has turned into a bodhran band, any accomplished player worth their salt will have put their drum away and gone to the bar. The ideal number of Bodhrans being played in a session is one... or none. Two can play off one another nicely too, much like rhythm and lead guitar work together but once a third enters the equation it's time for someone to consider taking a break; the subtlety and dynamics of any skilled individual playing is soon lost and the musicians playing the actual tune will find themselves having to compete to be heard. The wandering novice bodhran player is often regarded with a wary eye by those who consider themselves "proper" musicians for good reason; many haven't the faintest idea how bad and disruptive their playing can be. I call it the drumming-kruger effect.

At the end of the 90s the "bodhran band" situation had gotten so bad that I'd turn up at a session and not get my drum out its case at all. This was what motivated me to learn other instruments. Session players would become a lot more receptive when I'd reach into my bodhran case and pull out a tinwhistle and harmonicas instead!

If I had any advice to a prospective player it would be to learn another instrument as well ( You play accordian? 👍 ) I chose the tinwhistle because I loved Scottish and Irish dance melodies and because they fitted in the case with my bodhran. Later I had another go at learning guitar, having given up previously. I found that complex strumming patterns came really easily to me second time around and I put that down entirely to having learned bodhran in between. Even the coordination between the right and left hands (for finger muting at the guitar fretboard) draws on brain training established from my having learned bodhran.

Played well the bodhran is an amazing instrument that can really lift a session - played poorly it can kill it. Remember - less is more!