OK, you see we have this weekly gig at a nice pub. We have amplification, which should tell the world we’re a band, not a session. We have a Djembe drum…don’t need any more percussion. And last night we’re setting up and this guy with what looks like a pizza bag walks up and asks if it’s an open session. Duh! Fiddler player says “no”. “I have a bodhran” says the newcomer. At that point the answer should have been…“I hope it’s nothing serious” or “In that case I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave the pub”. My question is: Why don’t uilleann pipers do this? Why don’t flute players do this? No, it’s always the bodhran. They wanna sit up on stage going clippity clop, out of sync with the rest. I have a better suggestion for all bodhran players (most, anyway)…please please practice. Spend two hours a night for 6 months to a year, plus extra time on weekends. Play with a wide variety of CD’s. Then come back.
That guy might have been good, but 90% of them are so awful they have made us scared to give anyone a chance.
Just because it’s a percussion instrument does not excuse anyone from learning how to play it with skill and sensitivity. Why is it that attention-seeking nitwits are so drawn to it? It’s not easy to play well at all. Maybe they just think they won’t have to bother learning tunes. WRONG!!!
The whistle is an instrument that often suffers from the same plague. It’s cheap, easy to get sounds out of it, only 6 holes… people think they can play it in a session after only a few hundreds hours practicing. At least flute and fiddle and most other instruments will usually keep those who arent not willing to work at bay…
Playing hand drums myself, i am forever encountering people who turn up places with a djembe (usually untuned), smiling and stating proudly, “I chose the drum cause i wanted to play an instrument but i’m not at all musical”.
And because they have absolutely no musical ability whatsoever, they really have no idea how annoying and distressing their noise is to musicians.
True enough. If you want to really feel abuse walk into any session with a circular backpack. Don’t care who you are, where you are, or who you’re with, the reaction is always the same. And I’d agree that the prejudice is often well founded, either because 1. all too often the bodhran owner in question isn’t quite at sesh level, 2. its the 3rd or 4th circular backpack to walk into the pub that evening, or 3. its just that its a bodhran.
Its hard to know what to do in situations like these because while you always want to preserve the sesh you also don’t want to kick out a potentially good player before you’ve given them a chance. Truth be told, as often as bodhran players wreck sessions, I’ve heard bad box & fiddle players ruin far more. That’s not to single out the any instrument but its one thing if a supporting instrument is off the mark and totally another if the melody section is stuck on bump and scrape!
I’m a drummer/percussionist. I have tried the bodhran and it takes completely different muscles and motions than anything I’ve ever played. I borrowd one for a weekend I thought I could sit down for a few days and make some good progress on it. All I did was make my arms tired and I never got the hang of the double stroke.
I had to give it back and I haven’t tried it since. I’d like to, but now I know I have to invest a lot more time into it and I just haven’t had the inclinaion. I will. And one day I’ll carry the round backpack into a session and I’ll leave it in the pack and pull out the whistle and let everyone shoot worried glances at the bodhran in hiding, just waiting for me to pull it out. And when I pull it out, I’ll be pretty good. I’ll make sure.
In the meantime, I’ll be doing some tipper exercises.
That’s the fearsome thing about some instruments. Low whistles, nylon string guitars, harps, can blend.
On high whistle, any percussion, or just about any free-reed, every note is a solo. I’ll never forget the ulcers I cultivated filling in on the 48 inch bass drum for an orchestra concert. The only one more nervous was the guy on tambourine and triangle. There is no easier way to sabotage a piece than to mess up in the percussion section.
I am guilty of occasionally playing spoons, or doing agogo or clave rhythms on a beer mug with my wedding ring during a pub gig. Once I was even invited on stage with my beer-mug-agogo. I declined.
All I did was make my arms tired and I never got the hang of the double stroke.
Like every instrument it takes time to get up to a reasonable standard, a weekend is not nearly enough time to get used to the technique. I would say that the average beginner player should practice for approx 6 months before even considering using it at a session.
A simple way to start a strings player (rhythm instrument like guitar, bouzouki etc) is to get them to play the drum using a soft plectrum using a strum pattern that they are familiar with. Once they get used to the idea replace it with a beater and go on from there.
You’re absolutely right David, and I was naive to think I could adapt so quickly. I know that I could learn something new, percussion-wise, that was similar to what I do, relatively fast. But the bodhran is too different.
What I do know is this: I understand rhythms and beats better than most people who take up the bodhran as an ‘I really don’t play an instrument so I’ll try the bodhran’ instrument, and when I get the hang of the motion I’ll shoot up the learning curve. And I keep excellent time.
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes - found it in Bass Player, but can’t remember who said it… “Nothing derails a groove faster than a bass player who isn’t taking care of business.”
Actually, about the worst thing I personally have experienced is poor uilleann pipe playing. I can deal with a mediocre bodhran - it doesn’t necessarily obscure the melody (That’s my job, as a poor flutepuffer).
But out-of-tune, LOUD pipes really are next to impossible to play with. Fortunately it doesn;t happen as much. For a few reasons:
Anything so expensive requires people to take it seriously, so fewer dronetantes
The drones are optional! Which can be really nice.
I can certainly agree that the bodhran is not to be taken lightly when learning it. I have a really nice Remo that I got about 6 months ago, and I’m still not comfortable with it yet. I play a lot of instruments, but I play only a handful well. Those are the only instruments I play in public.
