On the last night of Lynne's visit we headed over to Comhaltas Cultúrlann na hÉireann. Maggie stayed home to study (we plan on taking another Thursday session in one of our last couple of weeks here) but we took Dervla's boys, Pearce and Oscar along for the ride!
I wish we had found this place and the Bodhrán experience earlier in our visit. It was a blast. Not only do they have these introductory sessions, but we could have taken a 10 week session as a family.*
For those of you who don't know, a Bodhran is an Irish drum. From Wikipedia:
"According to musician Ronan Nolan, former editor of Irish Music magazine, the bodhrán evolved in the mid-20th century from the tambourine, which can be heard on some Irish music recordings dating back to the 1920s and viewed in a pre-Famine painting. However, in remote parts of the south-west, the "poor man’s tambourine" – made from farm implements and without the cymbals – was in popular use among mummers, or wren boys. A large oil painting on canvas by Daniel Maclise (1806-1870) depicts a large Halloween house party in which a bodhrán features clearly."
Helen sets you up to take a look around the Comhaltas,** to see various levels of Bodhrán instruction and practice sessions taking place, and then you get an hour of basic training yourself. Helen is super friendly and her instructors are patient and enthusiastic. We were the ultimate beginners and our age ranged from 7 to 62, but she was able to teach us all and we all walked away excited about the instrument and that we had learned a bit.
At first it was quite difficult to handle and holding the"tipper" (or stick to beat it with) was strange.
Again from Wikipedia: "The drum is usually played in a seated position, held vertically on the player's thigh and supported by his or her upper body and arm (usually on the left side, for a right-handed player), with the hand placed on the inside of the skin where it is able to control the tension (and therefore the pitch and timbre) by applying varying amounts of pressure and also the amount of surface area being played, with the back of the hand against the crossbar, if present. The drum is struck with the other arm (usually the right) and is played either with the bare hand or with a tipper. There are numerous playing styles, mostly named after the region of Ireland in which they originated. The most common is Kerry style, which uses a two-headed tipper; the West Limerick style uses only one end of the tipper."
Our teacher ran through several common beats including a jig and taught us the basic downward/upward motion of the beat. It was a blast. I've got several videos of the even to post, but only time to upload two. The first is just a short video of all of us playing. The second is a video of Helen's advanced class. Take the time to look at this one. The very last lad playing in the video is a clear genius. Focus on him for a bit. When I was listening to that I at first didn't even understand how he was keeping a beat or maintaining it. My first reaction was that he must be a beginner (he was much younger than anyone else in the group of advanced players). Then all of a sudden my mind started making sense of what he was doing. It felt a little like starting to grasp a difficult math problem. Then it felt like starting to understand a painting like a Jackson Pollack -- I could see where his beats were incredibly creative and complicated interpretations, additions to the existing music. Not only keeping a beat for the rest of the music but contributing to the complexity of the tune. It was incredible and I could have listened to him all night long.
Video One: a tidbit from our session.
Video Two: the advanced workshop.
Here is a photo of the yard in front of the building.
*We had so much fun Sheila is already looking at taking lessons back home in St. Paul.
**Sheila and I had been here before. The Comhaltas is a center for Irish culture that promotes, particularly, dance, singing and music. I love the energy of that place -- part church basement, part Eagles Club, part pub. We wandered up and down flights of stairs in this old converted house, into and out of rooms with various musicians practicing. Pictures of Comhaltas founders, and leaders decorated the walls.
I wish we had found this place and the Bodhrán experience earlier in our visit. It was a blast. Not only do they have these introductory sessions, but we could have taken a 10 week session as a family.*
For those of you who don't know, a Bodhran is an Irish drum. From Wikipedia:
"According to musician Ronan Nolan, former editor of Irish Music magazine, the bodhrán evolved in the mid-20th century from the tambourine, which can be heard on some Irish music recordings dating back to the 1920s and viewed in a pre-Famine painting. However, in remote parts of the south-west, the "poor man’s tambourine" – made from farm implements and without the cymbals – was in popular use among mummers, or wren boys. A large oil painting on canvas by Daniel Maclise (1806-1870) depicts a large Halloween house party in which a bodhrán features clearly."
Helen sets you up to take a look around the Comhaltas,** to see various levels of Bodhrán instruction and practice sessions taking place, and then you get an hour of basic training yourself. Helen is super friendly and her instructors are patient and enthusiastic. We were the ultimate beginners and our age ranged from 7 to 62, but she was able to teach us all and we all walked away excited about the instrument and that we had learned a bit.
At first it was quite difficult to handle and holding the"tipper" (or stick to beat it with) was strange.
Again from Wikipedia: "The drum is usually played in a seated position, held vertically on the player's thigh and supported by his or her upper body and arm (usually on the left side, for a right-handed player), with the hand placed on the inside of the skin where it is able to control the tension (and therefore the pitch and timbre) by applying varying amounts of pressure and also the amount of surface area being played, with the back of the hand against the crossbar, if present. The drum is struck with the other arm (usually the right) and is played either with the bare hand or with a tipper. There are numerous playing styles, mostly named after the region of Ireland in which they originated. The most common is Kerry style, which uses a two-headed tipper; the West Limerick style uses only one end of the tipper."
Our teacher ran through several common beats including a jig and taught us the basic downward/upward motion of the beat. It was a blast. I've got several videos of the even to post, but only time to upload two. The first is just a short video of all of us playing. The second is a video of Helen's advanced class. Take the time to look at this one. The very last lad playing in the video is a clear genius. Focus on him for a bit. When I was listening to that I at first didn't even understand how he was keeping a beat or maintaining it. My first reaction was that he must be a beginner (he was much younger than anyone else in the group of advanced players). Then all of a sudden my mind started making sense of what he was doing. It felt a little like starting to grasp a difficult math problem. Then it felt like starting to understand a painting like a Jackson Pollack -- I could see where his beats were incredibly creative and complicated interpretations, additions to the existing music. Not only keeping a beat for the rest of the music but contributing to the complexity of the tune. It was incredible and I could have listened to him all night long.
Video One: a tidbit from our session.
Video Two: the advanced workshop.
Here is a photo of the yard in front of the building.
*We had so much fun Sheila is already looking at taking lessons back home in St. Paul.
**Sheila and I had been here before. The Comhaltas is a center for Irish culture that promotes, particularly, dance, singing and music. I love the energy of that place -- part church basement, part Eagles Club, part pub. We wandered up and down flights of stairs in this old converted house, into and out of rooms with various musicians practicing. Pictures of Comhaltas founders, and leaders decorated the walls.
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