Bodhran: Ireland musical instrument

The bodhran is an Irish frame drum that is ranging from 25 cm to 65 cm in diameter, having most of the drums measuring about 35 cm to 45 cm. the sides of the musical instrument are 9 cm to 20 cm deep.  One side of the musical instrument is tacked with goat skin head. The other side of the musical instrument is open-ended for one hand of the player to be placed against the inside of the instrument’s head to control the tone quality and the pitch of the musical instrument.

source of picture: emerald-isle-gifts.com

One or two crossbars that are removable sometimes may be inside the frame, though this is increasingly scarce on the modern versions of the musical instrument. Some professional modern versions of the bodhran integrates mechanical tuning pattern analogous to those used on the drums that are found in drum kits. It is often with a hex key that the musical instrument’s skin are tightened or loosened reliant on the atmospheric situations.

According to musician Ronan Nolan, the former editor of Irish Music Magazine, the musical instrument came out in the mid-20^th century from the musical instrument called tambourine that can be heard on some Irish music recordings traced back to the 1920s and viewed in pre-Famine paintings. Meanwhile, in some remote parts of the southwest, the version of the tambourine that is produced for poor men that is made from farm implements and without the cymbals, was prominently used among mummers or wren boys. A large oil paintings on canvas by Daniel Maclise portrays a large Halloween house party  in which the musical instrument features clearly. That painting, carved in 1842, portrays a flautist accompanied by a player of tambourine who, in an Islamic pattern in contrast to standard version of bodhran style, used his fingers instead of a tipper. It is recorded that by the 20^th century, home-manufactured frame-drums were carved with the use of willow branches as frames, leathers as the head of the drums and pennies as the jingles of the instrument.

Seán Ó Riada declared the musical instrument to be the native instrument of the Celts, with a musical history that antedated Christianity, instinctive to southwest part of the Irish nation.

The Irish word bodhran, meaning a drum, is first cited in a translated English document in the 17^th century. It shows in Jacob Pool’s list of words from the Baronies of the Forth and Bargy in county Wexfors, referring to a drum, tambourine.

Third generation producer of the musical instrument Caramel Tobin suggests that the name of the musical instrument means skin tray. He also opines a link with the bodhar, an Irish word, meaning amid other things, a drum or a dull sound. A relatively new introduction to the music of Ireland, the musical instrument has largely replaced the function of the tambourine.

The bodhran is one of the most important of drums and because of that, the instrument is analogous to the frame drums distributed widely across northern parts of Africa from the Middle East and has cognates in musical instruments that are used for Arabic music and the musical cultures of the Mediterranean province. A larger version of the musical instrument is found in Iranian daff that is played with the fingers in an upright position, without the use of sticks. Traditional skin drums manufactured by some Native Americans are very similar in design to this musical instrument also.

It has also been put forward that the origin of the bodhran may be the skin trays that are used in the country, Ireland for carrying peats; the earliest version of the musical instrument may have simply been a skin spread across a wood frame with no means of attachment. Crowdy-crawn, the Cornish frame drum that was used for the harvesting of grains, was popular as early as 1880.

Peter Kennedy observed an analogous musical instrument in Dorset and Wiltshire in the 1950s, where the musical instrument was called the riddle drum.

Dorothea Hast has opined that until the mid-20^th century, the musical instrument was mainly used as a tray for the separation of chaff, in baking, as a food maître d'hôtel and for the string of food or tools. She debates that the use of bodhran as a musical instrument was restricted to ritual use in some rural regions. She claims that while the earliest proof of the use of this musical instrument beyond rituals occurs in the year 1842, the use of the instrument as a common musical instrument did not become prevalent until the 1960s, when Seán Ó Riada made use of the musical instrument.

There are no references to this exact name for a drum before the 17^th century. Although different drums have been played in the country since the ancient times, this musical instrument itself did not get general recognition as a legitimate musical instrument until the Irish cultural music resurgence in the 1960s, in which the musical instrument became popular through the music of Seán Ó Riada and some others.

The second wave roots renewal of the Irish cultural music in the 1960 and the 1970s brought virtuoso playing of the musical instrument to the forefront, when the instrument was further made prominent by the bands like Ceoltóirí Chualann and The Chieftains.

Growing interest on the instrument led to internationally available LP recordings, at whch time the musical iknstrument became globally popular. In the 1970s, virtuoso players of the instrument like The Boys of the Lough's Robin Morton, De Dannan's Johnny "Ringo" McDonagh and The Chieftains' Peadar Mercier, Planxty's Christy Moore, developed the musical instrument further.

Although the musical instrument is most common in Ireland, the instrument has also gained popularity throughout the Celtic musical world, specifically in Newfoundland, Scotland, Cape Breton and North mainland Nova Scotia. In the southern England, tambourines were a popular accompaniment instrument to traditional dance music. In the southwest of England, an analogous musical instrument produced from the frame of a garden sieve was once prominent and called a Riddle drum. in the Cornish traditional music, the musical instrument is called crowdy-crawn, the use of this musical instrument to store odds and ends steered to the name also being used to mean ‘miscellaneous’. The musical instrument also has found application within the Celtic music of Spain, usually accompanying the gaita gallega, which is a Spanish bagpipe instrument.

The musical drum is struck with either the bare hand of the player, or the player can beat the drum with a lathe-turned piece of wood known as bone, tipper beater of cipin.

The musical instrument is often played while seated, held vertically on the thigh of the player and supported by the upper body and arm of the player, having the hand placed on the inside skin where the hand is able to control the tension of the instrument by applying different amount of pressure and as well the amount of surface area that is being performed, having the back of the hand against the crossbar, if it is present. The musical instrument is struck with the other arm and is played with the bare hands of the player or the tipper.

 When playing the musical instrument as an accompaniment musical instrument to the Irish music, various beats can be used. The playing styles of the musical instrument have been affected by the introduction of the internal tone ring, driven against the skin to loosen it by bscrew. This was developed by Seamus O'Kane, from Dungiven, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, to fight the damp conditions of Donegal in the year 1976. This pattern was copied from the banjo, but adapted for this musical instrument, bodhran. For a few years, only about 6 drums of this kind were manufactured, so it was not in anticipation of the idea was taken and advanced by the producers that it caught on. The pattern is now being used by the producers from several diverse cultures in the world. It has revolutionized the production and playing of this musical instrument by eliminating the threat of atmospheric conditions to the tension of the instrument’s head. The accepted philosophy of thick skin on the instrument was challenged as well at this same time by O’Kane’s introduction of thin Lambeg skins for the instrument. This permitted the musical instrument to gain both higher and lower crisp notes and permitted the players of the musical drum to become more musical and delicate in the act of playing the bodhran.

Currently, it is usual for the rim of the musical drum to be covered with the use of electrical tape, either by the producer of the instrument or the owner of the musical instrument. This both reduces edge-loading and dampens unnecessary overtones, permitting for greater control of the sound of the instrument. Electrical tape is ideal because the adhesive is rubber-based and will spread with the skin even after connecting to it, reducing the likelihood of bubbles and other changes in the tape taking place when the skin tension of the instrument is altered by tuning or the atmospheric situations. The owners of lower quality versions of the drum, with thick and rough skin may also decide to sand the skin very lightly to diminish the rasp when the tipper strikes the face of the musical instrument. Many effects of these and some other alterations to the skin of the instrument, specifically high quality skins, may also be gained via regular use of the musical instrument over time.

As world music in common has become more popular, styles once linked with other ethnic drumming traditions have become common in the playing of this musical instrument. The world Bodhran Championships are always held in Milltown, County Kerry, Ireland yearly.