It has been mentioned to me, and also I have noticed it on a few online discussion boards, people claiming that some bodhráns don't last too long, or "die" to use a more dramatic term.
I have had a number of bodhráns in for re-skinning because the player claims that the skin has gone too soft, I must say that I did not make these drums but usually this just happens when the bodhrán is played excessively for years and years. However, it must be a worry to have paid good money for a drum and then after a year or so have the skin lose its sustain and go flat.
I cure my goatskins in a traditional way i.e. soaking the skin in a solution of garden lime and water. They are then pickled for a day in brine, a solution of salt and water. I believe in this process because it works every time. After I stretch the skin I can rub special moisturisers into the skin to moisten the skin. If the wrong moisturiser or oil is rubbed into the skin it can cause a reaction to the skin which starts to break down over a period with playing.
Playing the skin or beating the skin slightly stretches the skin but the elasticity of the skin brings it back to its original shape. I believe the problem is with the oil used to moisturise the skin either during the curing process or by the owner. Oil is also used to soften the skin and it may be that it is overdoing its job. It is important to know that our bodhrán skin is very similar to our own skin and if we wouldn't put it on our own skin well we shouldn't put it on our bodhráns skin.
If it does go loose, however, there are a number of very simple solutions for this problem. The first being to change the bodhrán skin by an experienced bodhrán maker. There are enough of us around. I successfully do this all the time. I not only provide this service but take great pleasure in prolonging the life of a bodhrán.
Sometimes you can even just use the same skin, which is actually the second option. I just take off the skin, soak it in water for a few hours, and wring it out before re-stretching the skin back onto the frame. After it drys you may be happy with the result and usually it will last another few years, but if you are not satisfied with the sound then we can simply put a new skin on it.
Popping a new skin on a bodhrán is much less traumatic than you think, so don't be worried about what bodhrán will live or die, because they don't die, maybe you could say they get sick, and just need a simple skin transplant.
What Oils Should I Use On My Bodhrán?
Basically the goatskin is suseptable to humidity and as such the tension can vary. If the humidity is too high the skin gets loose. If the humidity is too low the skin becomes too dry and gets tight. The tuning system eliminates these problems. If in a session you find your drum is too loud, you can let off the tension by loosening the screws. Alternatively if the skin is flopy, you can tighten the screws.
You may wish to higher the tension so as to be heard, or lower the tension so as to be humble. So you can change the tension for different tunes.
I usually change the tension by turning the screws a quarter turn each, and then sound the bodhran. If I am happy with the sound I leave it and play on. If I am not happy with the sound I turn the screws again until I have found the sound I wish to achieve. Try highering and lowering the tension to hear the different sounds your bodhran can make. It is favoured among bodhran players to higher the tension if playing with a tipper the higher end of the bodhrán, this is called high end playing. It is using the bottom end of the tipper only and playing the top half of the bodhran. For this type of playing you need the tuning system to tighten the skin.
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I'll reply to comments directly ~ Paraic
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What makes a real bodhrán? It's a great question, in fact it is the most important question every bodhrán player, new or seasoned, asks themselves when choosing to purchase one.
For me, for 34 years I have researched, tinkered and hammered away trying to figure what exactly makes a great bodhrán beat. You could say I made it my mission. This is what I have found:
THE BODHRÁN SKIN
Obviously, you've guessed it, the skin is the most important part. I notice the different tones no problem of course, but we've done blind tests here, and the results are staggering. Even non-bodhrán players can tell the difference a mile away. It's that obvious.
There is a huge difference in sound between a properly made bodhrán and poorly made bodhrán, so take your time choosing where you buy yours.
Hand-cured and hand stretched, properly conditioned and treated (without the use of chemicals) goatskin wins every single time. So it is no wonder goat skin, compared to synthetic drum heads, lemo, kangaroo, greyhound and deer skin, has stood the test of time and continues to be the skin of choice for real bodhrán makers the world over. Always look for sustainably sourced goatskin.
Other things such as painted skins didn't make much of a difference, however most of the bodhráns that you can buy that come ready-painted are generally made for display purposes only so if you plan on playing it I would avoid it if at all possible.
A heavy skin tends to become more rigid than a thin skin and you may feel you are playing a board. A fine skin say about 3/4 to 1 mm thick has a resonance in it that a thick skin say 2mm does not have. I use black electrical tape round the outside of the skin on the bodhrán to dampen the tone. The bodhrán is a bass drum, meaning first and foremost, it must produce a quality deep mellow tone. This is the secret of the best bodhrán skins.
Let's move on.
Ok so we've figured out it is mainly all about the skin but what about the rim. Before I talk about tuneable bodhráns, what difference does a good frame make to a bodhrán? The frame has to be professionally constructed to bear the pressure of the skin. It will need a single bar or a T-bar inside the frame so you can comfortably get your hand in behind the skin. You may sometimes rest the back of your hand against the inside bar to put pressure on the skin.
THE BODHRÁN RIM
The rim would need to be at least 4" deep and sometimes up to 6.5" deep. I recommend a deeper rim, but this is fashion and has very little bearing on the sound. Remember the tone is all in the skin; the way it is treated and the way it is finished. The rim would have to be conical in shape to affect the sound. I have tried every size rim from 2" to 14" deep and found that the ideal thickness is from 4" to 6". Deep enough to control and shallow enough to spread around the room.
If you are only learning or thinking of learning I always recommend a non-tuneable bodhrán, because if you decide bodhrán playing is not for you, at least it won't break the bank. If you are serious about playing longterm, however, I strongly recommend a tuneable bodhrán. You can achieve so much more with being able to play high bass to give you higher volume and low bass to play quietly depending on the tune.
BODHRÁN TUNING
Being able to tune a bodhrán is a basic need for any serious player. The weather and humidity on this planet we live in is unpredictable and the natural skin reacts to humidity. Owning a tuneable or adjustable bodhrán allows you to have control over the tension of the skin on your bodhrán. This will mean your bodhrán is not too high pitched or too soft when you go to play in a session.
How I tape a bodhrán: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt9TiA2XCDc
Every bodhrán I make is made with patience, passion and precision, so when it's played, you hear that deep bass, mellow, resonating tone, only achieved from a high-quality crafted drum.
All comments I receive will be replied to directly ~ Paraic
]]>By Paraic McNeela (The Bodhrán Maker)
Every year I give a lecture in DCU (Dublin City University) on the topic of The Bodhrán. The fun thing I like to do at the start, to grab the students attention, is to say "The facts you are about to hear are all lies". That of course is not true, but over the years if there is one thing I have learnt when researching the bodhrán is that there is actually no definitive history of the bodhrán. We can only rely on word of mouth (more like chinese whispers) handed down through the generations, like the stories and legends narrated to us by our parents and grandparents. What we know about the bodhrán is only hear say. Basic online research will deliver several and varied opinions on the drum’s roots. Many claim it as an ancient druidic drum and indeed the frame drum is the oldest form of drum. In the case of the bodhrán, a trade route could feasibly be traced back over several millennia to Persia where the frame drum is considered to have originated. Most make the connection to its use in winnowing i.e. separating seeds, and this would provide the most likely source as it provided the basic drum for most of the other frame drumming cultures. More recently it may have come from North Africa where it is still used today and played by the hand. Ireland traded with the Mediterranean countries making this a likely explanation. For the dying of wool the rim could have been made of bent willow with the skin stretched and tied over the circular willow then punctured to allow the dye to pass through. For dying, the popular colours then would have been purple, from the flower of the heather, green from vegetables and orange from carrots. Purple and green are known as the Celtic colours. The bodhrán was also used in battle as a war drum to rise the temper of the fighting men against the enemy. The first we hear mention of the bodhrán in folklore, is from our grand parents and they probably heard it from their grandparents and this was with regards to the wren. We can presume it was used around in the 18th century and maybe many centuries before that. As the wren is said to be a pagan ritual, we don’t know how far back it goes. There is no written history that I can find. John B Keane wrote the book “ The Bodhran Makers” but that was a novel, not a history. What it does tell us is that the bodhran was well known around the Kerry area and was part of the local tradition, well enough known to write a book about it.
What made it popular was its use as a beat to the music played on the day of the wren, Saint Stephen’s day the 26th of December . The wren, when a group of men dressed up in straw hats and straw skirts their faces blackened with soot, entertained their local population by going from house to house playing traditional music and dancing in payment for food, money, or drink and of course the craic. They were called wrenboys, mummers, or strawboys. The wren is said to be a pagan tradition and if the bodhran was used in this tradition it could go back a millennium or more. Legend has it that St Stephen was betrayed by a chattering wren while hiding from his enemies. The wren like St Stephen should be hunted down and stoned to death. Another legend holds that during the Viking raids of the sixth centuary, Irish soldiers were betrayed by a wren as they were sneaking up on a Viking camp in the dead of night. The wren began eating crumbs left on a bodhran drum head and the rat-a-tat-tat of his beak on the drumhead woke the drummer who sounded the alarm. The Irish were subsequently defeated and the wren blamed. So if the wren was celebrated as early as the first millennia it is possible that the bodhrán was also around at that time.
The wren the wren the king of all birds,
On Stephens Day was caught in the furze,
Although he is little his family is great,
I pray you lady you give us a treat.
My box would speak if it had only a tongue,
And two or three shillings would do it no wrong,
Sing holly sing ivy-sing ivy sing holly,
A drop just to drink would drown melancholy.
And if you draw it of the best,
I hope in heaven your soul will rest,
But if you draw it of the small,
It won’t agree with these wrenboys at all.
The bodhrán was first recorded on a 78 record in the 1920s and became popular in the fifties and sixties with the renewal in popularity of traditional Irish music and gave life to the bodhran makers of the sixties such as Sonny Davey from Sligo, Charlie Byrne from Tipperary, Paddy Clancy from Limerick and many more. Bodhrán-making became a cottage industry and in 1978 I joined that fraternity known as The Bodhrán Makers. An bodhrán was promoted by Seán O Riada in his arrangements for Ceoltoiri Cualann, who later became the Chieftains, and was preferred by Sean to the snare drum used in the ceili bands. The word bodhrán could also mean deafner, possibly so called because the wren boys used it to make a lot of noise. According to John B the wren boys sometimes added flattened pennies to the sides to make a jingle and hence the name tambourine. It was also called the bourine.
However, the bodhrán is regarded by most with derision, or at best suspicion and this is what bodhrán players are up against. There are reasons for this attitude. The bodhrán seems easy to play; to the non-musician who wants to be thought of as a musician, the bodhrán seems an easily-acquired passport into a select company. Or it may be that he perceives the music as an entertainment which everyone may, or should, join in. Whatever the motivation, the results are sometimes dreadful; a piano accordion, for example, accompanied by a battering of four or five aspiring bodhrán players, all producing personal variations on what they think is the beat is hardly likely to be music. On the other hand the bodhrán can give a good lift to a session or to solo playing. The combination of flute and bodhrán is a well tried one and many flute players like a good bodhrán accompaniment. The frame is made from a variety of different timbers the most popular being plywood. The use of crossbars gives that added strength to the frame. The skin most used is goatskin but I have heard of people using a variety of animal skins. Goats are not killed for their skins. The skin is a by product. The skins that are used today come from a variety of countries mainly Ireland, North Africa, India and Pakistan.
To finish off, a researcher friend of mine was researching the word bodhrán and believes that it comes from the Irish word borranaigh, which means anger or aggravate. Relate this to winnowing i.e. the separating of the wheat from the chaff. As the wheat bounced against the skin, the wheat is agitated and the chaff separates. So the agricultural tool used to perform this operation could well be called a bodhrán.
So there you have it. I've searched libary's and the web, but from what I can gather it is all speculation. This, in my professional opinion, is the most likely history of the Bodhrán.
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