The Bodhran (pronounced bow-ron) is a traditional Irish frame drum played with one or both hands. This beginner course covers all of its basics.

The bodhran is an easy instrument to master, although certain stick manoeuvres and hand movements may prove challenging. To play harmonious music on it, rhythmic patterns should correspond closely with ornamentations on your instrument.

Basics

The Bodhran is the heartbeat of Irish traditional music, being played on an ancient frame drum played with a tipper stick. A skilled musician can produce stunning rhythms and sounds from this instrument.

Good news is that learning a ukulele can be relatively straightforward; however, like any musical instrument it requires constant practice to become proficient at.

As it’s an accompaniment instrument, the bodhran should serve to match the rhythms of whatever music you’re playing along with. Therefore, to learn quickly it would be prudent to start off by listening to recordings of Irish tunes and trying to replicate their rhythms on your bodhran.

Correct pronunciation of bodhran is to pronounce it ‘bow-rawn’; adding an Irish accent with ‘fada’ after each letter ‘A’ helps make this easier than similar-sounding terms like ‘bodhrann’ and makes its pronunciation simpler for American speakers. American accented speakers may find their pronunciation challenging.

Tuning

Bodhrans can vary considerably in pitch. To tune them, a player uses a stick known as a tipper to tap on the head of the drum with it; both ends of this wooden tipper can be used for beating on it; this style of playing is known as Kerry style while when only one end is used it is known as top end.

The top bodhran players know how to adapt quickly to music by altering their tuning, offering everything from subtle accompaniments in small session rooms up to full resonating basses for concerts. To do this, they must also adapt their techniques as environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity and rain change over time.

Andy Kruspe provides you with everything you need to play the bodhran with ease in his second resource, The Bodhran Primer. Both books cover theory behind playing as well as eight tune types and how they should be played with both upbeats and downbeats.

Techniques

The Bodhran is an Irish frame drum known for its distinctive sound and rhythms that is integral to traditional Irish music. In this course, beginners will be introduced to several basic bodhran rhythms and techniques ranging from changing tone variation with accompaniment jigs/reels/fills to more advanced patterns/fills (known as ‘fills”).

The basic playing technique of bodhran involves holding it upright with the goatskin drum head facing right (if you are left handed). A stick, commonly referred to as tipper or beater, should be held in your supporting hand about one third down from the top; it will be used to strike downward against the skin of bodhran for its characteristic rhythms and tones.

Listening to professional bodhran players and taking note of how they embellish the natural rhythms of tunes by employing various articulations techniques will help you develop your own style and enhance your playing of the bodhran.

Exercises

Playing the Irish drum, the bodhran, requires practice and dedication. Too many players pick up this simple frame drum without proper techniques or skills and attempt to play it without proper regard for this magnificent instrument’s reputation; they risk damaging its value or giving its wonderful drumming sound an unfortunate reputation.

Amy Richter (athas, Danu) provides online bodhran lessons for all levels. Starting with beginners’ basic technique she quickly progresses into more advanced topics like tonality variation, accompanying reels and jigs and even patterns and fills.

The Bodhran is an Irish drum composed of goat, calf or synthetic skin stretched over a wooden frame and played using a “tipper,” an open-ended stick held like a pencil that allows users to play the drum and alter its sound.

Please follow and like us: