Musician Talk

[Sunflower]

They probably will haunt you forever. I can still hum the tunes to marching band shows I played six years ago. Not that I mind 

They will.  My high school band days are back in the late '80s and I can still hear Vaclav Nelhybel's "Festivo" clear as day.

[Alkia]

YAY, other percussionists! And *gasp* Roisin, someone else finally knows what a bodhrán is!!! I’ve never played one but have always wanted to (and I LOVE the sound).
I am absolutely in love with percussion, my favorite instrument to play being the classic: timpani. I’m also very psyched at being taught how to do the tambourine thumb roll thing (should really find out what that’s called). Overall, the most best thing about percussion (gosh, I’ve said that word so many times here) is that there’s just INFINITELY many instruments to learn!! You could know how to play all the ones in your Highschool cabinet but there’s still be hundreds of other drums to learn to play.
Well, that was a bit all over the place, but yeah! Music yayy
Forgot to mention: I also dabble in Ukulele and enjoy it greatly

[wavewright62]

YAY, other percussionists! And *gasp* Roisin, someone else finally knows what a bodhrán is!!! I’ve never played one but have always wanted to (and I LOVE the sound).
I am absolutely in love with percussion, my favorite instrument to play being the classic: timpani. I’m also very psyched at being taught how to do the tambourine thumb roll thing (should really find out what that’s called). Overall, the most best thing about percussion (gosh, I’ve said that word so many times here) is that there’s just INFINITELY many instruments to learn!! You could know how to play all the ones in your Highschool cabinet but there’s still be hundreds of other drums to learn to play.
Well, that was a bit all over the place, but yeah! Music yayy
Forgot to mention: I also dabble in Ukulele and enjoy it greatly

I say this as a brass player: percussion rules.  There are heaps of bodhrán players among the folk clubs here, and at any festival you can find people willing to show you how (and I daresay a vendor or two to set you up with your very own!). I may be considering learning myself. Yet another reason to come to NZ.

[Róisín]

Alkia, if you are ever in South Australia on a last Saturday of the month, you would be welcome to one of my monthly music nights. We have several percussionists, a few singers, a mandolin and whistle player (who is also, like me, a teller of folktales), plus whoever else comes by with whatever instruments. I can no longer play my big harp, my hands are too damaged, but my friend Liz can play it, as well as guitar and that little spindle-shaped Arabic drum, the name of which I forget. And although she can’t often get there (she travels a lot), one of my sisters plays ukulele.

Bodhráns are wonderful! When I help a friend with hunting the feral goats on his reclamation property in the Flinders Ranges, we save the best goatskins for a friend who makes bodhráns.

[Alkia]

Oof, it took me too long to get back to this thread.
 

Alkia, if you are ever in South Australia on a last Saturday of the month, you would be welcome to one of my monthly music nights. We have several percussionists, a few singers, a mandolin and whistle player (who is also, like me, a teller of folktales), plus whoever else comes by with whatever instruments. I can no longer play my big harp, my hands are too damaged, but my friend Liz can play it, as well as guitar and that little spindle-shaped Arabic drum, the name of which I forget. And although she can’t often get there (she travels a lot), one of my sisters plays ukulele.

ahh, this sounds SO fun!! I'm more used to classical, indoor rehearsal spaces, so this more casual-sounding thing sounds great (also, !!folktales!! Never enough old stories *glances at book shelf dedicated to fables and myths from too many cultures*). Also, when you say whistle, you mean tin whistle, right? (I'm trying to get more into Celtic music because, well, I really love it!)

There are heaps of bodhrán players among the folk clubs here, and at any festival you can find people willing to show you how (and I daresay a vendor or two to set you up with your very own!). I may be considering learning myself. Yet another reason to come to NZ.

If I'm ever in the Southern Hemisphere, I'm going to make sure to get to New Zealand and South Australia!
Also, a bit of news about bodhráns! I thiiink I found one tucked away in the top shelf of my school's percussion cabinet? It doesn't have the cross bars (although from the little research I've done they don't strictly need those), the drumhead is made out of plastic, and the beater is lost, but in every other respect it looks/sounds like one. If I can locate the beater I might be able to play around with it *o*

[Róisín]

I must say I prefer a gathering of folkies/filkers and the like to classical rehearsals (unless the classical musician is someone I just love to listen to, such as my classical-violinist oldest daughter, or a friend who plays cello and sometimes conducts in classical style, but played bush bass in my cousin’s folk band).

And you can play a bodhran with fingertips or knuckles if you don’t have a beater, but it can make your fingers bleed if you play too hard.

[Jitter]

A case in point:

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Or actually, two:

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Just one percussion instrument can be very versatile indeed. It looks kind of simple, but is anything but!

[Jitter]

Aand now there are pictures. Ok.

The bodhran is very similar in construction with the noitarumpu or shaman drum of the Sami and other northern peoples. It’s assumed also the Finns had similar drums, but they have been totally lost. Also almost all Sami drums were destroyed in the 1700’s by Christian missionaries, but enough information about them has been preserved so that we know what they were / are like,

The noitarumpu however is not played for entertainment but to induce trance and also to ask for the spirit’s opinions and guidance. Symbols of power were painted on the hide (usually reindeer) and a lot (often a bone) moved by the vibrations would indicate the answer by its position on the symbols.

[Róisín]

Yeah, I know about noitarumpu, and they are very like the bodhrán, Siberian and Native American shamanic drums, and I suspect all may have originally had similar magical/cultural usage. Mine has a knotwork design painted by my youngest son, who unlike his mother can draw beautifully. The scrying technique for the bodhrán is to play it softly in the trance-inducing rhythm, which is somewhat like a steady heartbeat, over a bowl of liquid. The Sight may manifest as an image in the liquid, or a significant pattern of tiny ripples.

Mine mostly gets used as an accompaniment to singing or storytelling. Which reminds me, Mediæval Fair is the first weekend in May at Gumeracha, and I will be singing and storytelling in the Viking Village near the creek. We also have a wonderful harper this year! Should be fun!

[Keep Looking]

You know, once I get my license and finish school, I should take a road trip across the nullabor and see one of your storytelling sessions. They sound pretty amazing!

[Róisín]

Let me know if you come over. Accomodation at my place is a swag by the fire, but the food and company are good!

[Alkia]

Or actually, two:

/>
Just one percussion instrument can be very versatile indeed. It looks kind of simple, but is anything but!

woa, I didn't know bodhrans varied in size like that!

Also, I looked up the noitarumpu, and, from the little I saw, it's really a beautiful instrument (It's so cool you have your own, Roisin!). It's kind of amazing that these sorts of traditions have survived for so long, and, even if they're not commonly practiced anymore, are known about.

Another thing I wanted to share was this! Today's wacky percussion discovery: the ugly stick! I was listening to Come From Away (which is a great musical, by the way. the way it centers around hospitality and human diversity is a topic for another discussion, but I love it so much!!), when I heard a man in one of the songs mention something called an "ugly stick". So I looked it up, and found this bizarre thing! I love ittttt 

[Róisín]

Ugly stick? Hmm. Does it sound anything like a lagerphone? So called because the upright stick is studded with beer bottle caps, and makes an interesting noise when another stick is drawn across it. Common in Australian bush bands, and sometimes found in jug bands. Then there is the rain stick, which is played either by percussion or by turning it end for end, which causes the particles inside to cascade with a rainlike sound. And anent rainmaking instruments, there is the balafon, which is basically a tapered drum with strings down the sides.....

[Jitter]

I totally didn’t understand anything the guy in the green shirt said I could just about make out it’s probably English of some kind. 

[Alkia]

I totally didn’t understand anything the guy in the green shirt said I could just about make out it’s probably English of some kind. 

haha, yeah, the heavy Newfoundland accent is notoriously hard to understand

Ugly stick? Hmm. Does it sound anything like a lagerphone? So called because the upright stick is studded with beer bottle caps, and makes an interesting noise when another stick is drawn across it. Common in Australian bush bands, and sometimes found in jug bands.

they're definitely very similar, although the lagerphone sounds more, hmm, tambourine like? to my ears.