How to Buy a Bodhran
Purchasing a bodhran is an important decision that requires you to ensure you purchase an instrument of the highest quality within your budget.
A bodhran is a traditional Irish frame drum featuring a goatskin head. Using an attached beater, its sound is generated. Some versions even come equipped with internal crossbars for additional tonal variations.
1. Look for a quality instrument
Bodhrans are stunning instruments, worthy of respecting as such. When shopping for one, make sure it’s of quality rather than buying cheap ornamental drums just to hang on your wall or football field.
Notably, when purchasing a bodhran it should only come from master craftspeople who understand its inner workings. Bodhrans are sacred instruments that require great craftsmanship from its maker to produce quality results.
When purchasing a bodhran, ensure it contains goat skin (preferably hand cured and stretched), which has the highest vibrational frequency of any other animal skin and makes for superior material. In order to produce authentic Irish sounds it’s best to stay away from low vibrational frequencies like those produced by synthetic drum skins such as Kangarooskin or Deer Skin which don’t produce the necessary tone of an Irish Bodhran.
2. Check the skin
Bodhrans typically feature high-grade goatskin for durability and sound; cheaper instruments may use cheaper calfskin that doesn’t last as long or produce the same sound quality as its goat counterpart.
Some manufacturers cover the rim of a drum with black tape to create a weighted edge and enhance its tone, as well as to reduce edge-loading which restricts hand movement and dampens unwanted overtones. This technique may help create more subtle overtones.
The skin should fit comfortably around your beater’s hand, making playing easy and enjoyable. For non-tunable instruments, using conditioning cream regularly to condition its skin can help it absorb moisture better and adjust tone according to temperature or humidity fluctuations; with tuned instruments however this process is made much simpler as wetting or heating is no longer required to fine-tune it.
3. Check the head
When purchasing a bodhran it is essential to take note of its head. A good quality natural skin head offers more tonal variety compared to synthetic heads which only produce one sound no matter how you play them.
Bodhrans have long been part of Irish musical traditions, yet during the 1960s they became more commonly seen as drumming instruments. Thanks to musicians like Peadar Mercier, Johnny “Ringo” McDonagh, and John Joe Kelly who helped bring about its modernization. These men reworked it into what it is today and brought it into mainstream usage.
Electrical tape can often be seen covering the rim of a bodhran by either its drummer or maker – an approach first initiated by Johnny “Ringo” McDonagh during his revolutionary work in the 1970s – to reduce edge loading and dampen unwanted overtones.
4. Check the hardware
The bodhran is a shallow drum measuring between ten and twenty-six inches in diameter. Often covered with goatskin on one side and open on the other, this instrument can be played using a small stick known as a “tipper”, creating various sounds from hard beats to gentle slides.
Though the bodhran has global origins and bears similarities to older tambourine-like instruments from North Africa and the Middle East, its design, tuning systems, and playing styles have evolved significantly over time. Colin Harte’s book entitled The Bodhran: Experimentation, Innovation, and the Traditional Irish Frame Drum provides a fascinating account of these innovations.
5. Check the price
Today the bodhran is widely considered the heartbeat of Irish music; however, this wasn’t always the case. One influential Irish musician credited with increasing its prominence was Sean O Riada who included this underappreciated instrument into Ceoltoiri Chualann ensemble during early 1960s.
Harte uses interviews and studies of this unique Irish musical drum’s development and history in this fascinating documentary. The Bodhran is a type of frame drum and shares characteristics with similar instruments used for rhythmic music in northern Africa and the Middle East. Harte uses these interviews to document its development over time.
