"Richard Thompson once remarked that sometimes the drummer is the best musician in the band"
When Brian Blade is in the band this is often the case.
However, I think the best answer to BB's question is, "sometimes, but not necessarily".
Or, one might say "drummers are musicians, but not all who carry drums are drummers". A friend of mine used to refer to certain players as "guitar owners". That seems apt, and applicable to many bodhran luggers as well.
The fact the Northern Irish Musicain of the Year plays the tymps is significant. There is a difference between tuned percussion players and the others...
Tuned percussion: piano, marimba, xylophone, vibes, tymps et cetera need as much musicianly understanding as any other instrument you play tunes on.
Another similar question is: Are vocalists musicians?
To be a good drummer, you have to be a good musician. Many drum kit players I have played with in bands have been able to play all manner of other instruments and this informs their drum playing. If the drummer doesn't understand music (melody, notes & chords) he's at a disadvantage. (hence the other old joke- Q: Why do you have a bass player in the band A: to translate what the lead six string devil twangler is saying to the drummer)
John Lennon was famously asked once in the 60's at a press conference whether Ringo was the best drummer in the world. Lennon answered that Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles!
exactly what I was going to say...the good ones are. Alot of the jazz drummers I worked with can play several instruments. One of the best piano players I know is the drummer in my trio right now
but you only get to play with drummers like that when you yourself are good enough to work with them
What about good musical drummers who program drum machines?
And there was a piano player in the 1930s I think, can't remember his name. But he liked to get rolls of blank pianola paper and cut his own holes in it. He wrote pieces than would be impossible to play, so he got the machine to play it.
However, I'm remeinded of the classic joke:
Two DJs having a chat,
"Hey, d'you fancy going to see that new blockbuster at the multiplex tonight?"
"Oh I dunno ... who's the projectionist?"
Maybe that's funny, as far as jokes go. We have a small movie theatre which, depending on the projectionist, the doors may open late . . . the film may be out of focus . . . the projectionist might leave the booth & not return in a timely fashion once the reels need to be changed . . .
A musician is a musician. Period. It does not matter what instrument that they choose to play. Pokes and jabs at each other in the atmosphere of fun are good craic. When the pokes and jabs get disrespectful, it's plain old rude and mean. If I ever play a projector I want to play it just like Marcel did in Inglorius Basterds. Burn baby burn.
I have met a few of those people who drag guitars around with them but they can't be called "musicians" without stretching that particular term to the breaking point. Usually, these are people who have oversized egos and undersized talent.
A bodhran is 'tuned' percussion in the right hands and should be tuned up just like any other instrument.
My son's a kit drummer and a very good one. He manages to earn money through playing and teaching so must be doing something right. He also won the senior bodhran competition at Sidmouth fest when he was 13 year old. Of course he's a musician. Singers are also musicians - why this same old daft question - whether good or bad. Nobody has defined the term so we're all talking from our own individual standpoint, although I'm beginning to realise that this seems to be half the fun of the mustard boards.
The word "musician" when looked up, has several definiations, each with a central meaning but with several different connotations or implications. This debate is rigged for semantic explosion from the outset. But, yes, as eiluned pointed out, that is part of the fun of the mustard boards.
The issue with the bodhran is that a poor player sometimes doesn't know they're crap. A poor fiddler knows they're crap. The bodhran guy just keeps wackin'.
People think that anyone can play it, but they can't.
A good player adds as much to the music as anyone else, and is missed when they're not playing. Especially if they're replaced by the wacker.
The road to bodhran respect is long, but we'll get there.
"Ah, but will the drummer?" Depends on whether they develop the art of listening - and how diplomatically they are told that what they may be doing is inappropriate.
I agree and there are sessions and sessions. But nobody's game is ever raised unless they are permitted to play sometimes with people who are better than they are.
Session playing is a long way from just being about the music. There is a whole social side and purpose which people often forget. It's an outlet for ordinary people which isn't governed by the need to make money or controlled by anyone other than the group (unless you take into account the ridiculous licensing laws in this country). Long may the inept scrape, squeeze and thump and may drunken punters at the bar contribute half a verse of The Fields of Athenry just so that they can get to stretch the first few words of the chorus like bubble gum stuck to your foot.
Deep joy! It can be a hell of a laugh. BUT I do need the music as well.
It can be made so the open skin is a D note. I'm not always that concientious about doing it, but it sometimes can add an extra accuracy to the low woomph sparingly used.
I feel that players need to be honest about they're ability no matter what they play. I agree that to get better, one of the best ways is to play with higher quality players. But players need to know what rung of the ladder they're on.
What I think is a main reason for the "bodhran stigma" is the notion that it's "easy" to play , so anyone can play it. People off the street look at a session and say " Hey, I can play that". Not really and not well 99% of the time.
The bodhran is my session instrument and I feel the added weight of the "stigma" when getting together with new players. It's fine once the playing starts, but the eyes burn right through me sometimes.
I firmly agree that I would not be half the player if I didn't play with others better than myself. But I always feel consious of my contribution(or lack of) to the music.
Music is made by organising sounds in a way that evokes an emotional response.
Musicians are people who play music.
If a musician plays music on a drum they are still a musician.
If a non-musician plays a drum they are still not a musician, (but may have potential for the future).
p.s. if the emotional response is unintentional - like "why the hell did they play that!" it is not music, but if the intention was to p*ss people off it is
Backing away from this one... if you think that discrete pitches from a bodhran are a good idea, there's no hope of even civil disagreement here. Best of luck.
It's true that the bodhran can 'seem' to be the easy way in to playing in a session. I will even lend my drum to folk new to the session who are sitting there obviously feeling ill at ease because they can't play anything. However, I'm very careful about who I lend it to and have to feel sure a) that they'll readily give it back without a fight b) they are listening properly and will allow me to show them what to do if they've never done it before c) will take on board that they are beginners and need to play very quietly so as not to infuriate the other players. I'm quite happy to lend it to someone who is already a musician in another genre.
This is a better way of doing things than suffering someone coming into a session with a drum which they've never played before who then beats hell out of it randomly, because they haven't been shown the right way.
It may be to do with style of playing. I don't play the crisp run up and down the scale sort of stuff - which I like a lot in the hands of someone like JJ Kelly. I've never learned how to go about that and I don't think my drum is quite right for it anyway.
Put it this way, the musicians I've played with seem OK with it and have not complained even though I ask if I'm intrusive rather than supportive. I play more tunes than bodhran now, but can freely admit that playing the drum was a way into session music for me. It did help that I was a musician before ever coming to sessions though.
Any one old enough to remember an old quiz show on UK telly called "face the music"? It was quite a high brow classical music thing. They had this round where the quiz master, an accomplished pianist, had this dummy keyboard thing that was like a full set of piano keys but no mechanism or strings etc. It just made a kind of clacherty noise. Each week the quiz master would play a famous piano piece on it and the contestants had to guess what it was.
Some percentage of them are, I suppose. That percentage started dropping in the early 1990s, and has been going down ever since, though. That whole Eternal September thing. Why do you ask?
I don't have a problem with someone learning to play bodhran. However, IMHO, anyone who wants to play only the bodhran throughout an entire session is missing out on a lot of what Irish traditional music is about. These tunes are so worth getting to know.
Think back on those times when the music absolutely hooted along. Precision, definition, colour,cohesion all happening beautifully.
Not perfectly, but good enough to bring a tear to a glass eye.
Whatever makes that happen is good.
I am sure I am not the only bodhran player who has "gotten to know the tunes" and can make a worthwhile contribution.
Learners, on the other hand are just another obstacle to overcome, it's all part of the craft, if you keep your own playing clear and true they will eventually catch up. No problem.
I repeat NO PROBLEM, so stop trying to make it one. Take some viagra eyedrops and have a long hard look at yourself.
If you continue to find fault with the people you play with there is something wrong with YOU.
My Bliss, of course drummers are musicians, and you know darn well that I've championed certain bodhran playing in recording and performance settings. In the right hands, the thing can ad great colour. And as you are so fond of saying - and I am powerless to disagree with such a profundity of it - punters love 'em.
And you also know that I'm utterly disinterested in the debate about the tolerance/intolerance of people who can't play the bodhran. It's no different to the arguments about the tollerance/intollerance of people who can't play fiddles, guitars etc. Practice zero tolerance and there's no problem.
My particular gripe is with the bodhran's contribution to the small ensemble sharing of diddley tunes. Contrary to what bodhran players often think, it most profoundly does not add precision, definition or cohesion. Quite the reverse, the thing is a specific and most irritating block to precision, definition and cohesion. It adds nothing to the tunes. Not one thing. All the rhythm, all of it, absolutely every last bit of rhythm is in the tunes already. End of story. The contribution of the bodhran is to make it harder to hear the tune and that's that.
And as for the bodhran player who has "gotten to know the tunes". WELL FECKIN PLAY THE FECKIN TUNES THEN.
Eiluned made a good point when he said: Session playing is a long way from just being about the music. There is a whole social side and purpose ... "
I think this can be one of the most endearing qualities of many open sessions, at least those that aren't riddled with elitism & snobbery, & perhaps it is the one which draws many people to sessions & inspires them to want to join in & make the effort to learn to play this music, in the first place.
Unfortunately though, in some cases, this desire would appear to be far stronger than what I would see as the more obvious & natural one, of actually wanting to be able to play the music well enough to be able to contribute to the overall sound in a valuable & meaningful way.
So this desire to take part, sometimes gets the better of many people who jump in far, far too early & with percussion instruments being seen as the easiest entry level instruments, I reckon they are always going to be more abused than most other, more expensive instruments.
Having said that, of course drummers are musicians. Regardless of the instrument, you get good & bad musicians, no matter what musical instrument they are playing.
One of the most inspiring musicians I know is Evelyn Glennie ..... I rest my case!
Spot on, Dick ! I do think percussion is the most difficult instrument to play, and percussionist are musicians, and they have to be good musicians too... Then you have to make people understand that... we do a lot of "coaching2 in our session, with newbies who arrive with a bodhran, showing them to play softly, to listen to the melodies.... and it gets along quite nicely.
Ho, and I fall in love with Evelyn Glennie everytime I hera or see her... she's truly one of the best musicians I know !
I think there's maybe a bit more leeway to be given to bodhran players. When a new guitarist joins the session the other guitarists there give them a bit of space and let them lead the chords, or alternatively they just sit out the tune. A fiddle/box etc player may play more quietly in order to hear the others playing the tune. Maybe if we let the bodhran take a more leading role in the session, they'll back off and play WITH the session in the same way we all do and take some responsibility for the overall sound. As long as there is resistance to the instrument and a battle commences for them to get acknowledged, there'll be no sense of responsibility or, more importantly, "session" for anyone.
"It's true that the bodhran can 'seem' to be the easy way in to playing in a session. I will even lend my drum to folk new to the session who are sitting there obviously feeling ill at ease because they can't play anything. However, I'm very careful about who I lend it to and have to feel sure a) that they'll readily give it back without a fight b) they are listening properly and will allow me to show them what to do if they've never done it before c) will take on board that they are beginners and need to play very quietly so as not to infuriate the other players."
I see from your bio that you also play the box. Dt made me wonder if you would lend that out to people who can't play anything?
Recently I sat opposite a bodhran player who didn't have a clue. I thought maybe he was having trouble getting the rhythm he wanted using the tipper, as he was obviously new to the instrument. Then he swapped instruments to play an upright type drum, with no improvement........
"Maybe if we let the bodhran take a more leading role in the session, they'll back off and play WITH the session in the same way we all do and take some responsibility for the overall sound."
Huh?
How do you "let the bodhran take a more leading role" at a session?
"What do you want to play?"
*thumpity thump, thump* and then *thump thwack thumpity*
"Ah, the Mossy Banks into Rolling in the Ryegrass. Off we go then."
P*ss-taking aside, I don't get how anyone taking a "leading role" at a session = having more responsibility to the "overall sound." Plenty of melody players don't take responsibility for that, either! In any case, a good drummer isn't going to trainwreck the overall sound (I kinda agree with Michael about it not adding much and playing the fecking tunes, but in real life I'm not really fecked off when one joins a session so long as they have a clue). It's the ones who just see it as an easy way in who you have to watch out for.
"One of the most inspiring musicians I know is Evelyn Glennie ..... I rest my case!"
I think you'll find Evlyn Glennie is a percussionist, not a drummer.
Percussionists are musicians - they spend just as many years in the conservatoire as violinists or flautists. They understand music, and their instrument, in exactly the same way as other musicians.
Drummers are people who get a strange urge to hit things when they hear music..
I don't know. That's why I proffered the two options. I'll gladly consider a third?
And sure, a good drummer isn't going to trainwreck the overall sound. But there's a world of difference between a trainwreck and that particular freedom you get when all the tune players can really hear each other clearly and distinctly. Even the best bodhran player in the world interfears with this.
I asked a drummer to stop the other week because he was playing out of time. He took a right humph, the feckin eedjit. He said it was the tune players who were playing out of time with him.
I would class myself as a not so good tune player but I find I HAVE to keep my timing spot-on when I play with a bodhran (I mean, I try to keep it spot on anyway but I have moments where it will all go pear-shaped). You can't "lean" on them. They are leaning on you. So if your timing gets wavery, they totally lose the plot. Conversely I've played with many guitarists who can keep it together even when I stumble, which is handy sometimes.
What gets on my thrupenny bits is when you tell a bodhran player (who may well have good basic rhythm) that you are going to paly a couple of hornpipes - the unsyncopated variety - like slowed down reels - then the pace starts to speed up to reel pace, and the effect of the nice little triplets in the 2nd parts are lost because it all goes whooshing past the listener(s) like an express train. Musicians? Geezabrek.
Evelyn Glennie ... surely sinking to an all time low this time llig, looking down your nose at a cripple!
I suppose you would have snubbed Django Reinhardt too!
No doubt he was a fraud too, because folks said he only had two fingers, but his other two were only badly deformed & partially paralyzed ... not missing at all!
@ llig- You used the words "good bodhran player". WOW, would that be concidered a breakthrough?
@Silver Spear- I agree. One issue for me is sometimes I'm asked to keep the tempo for the tune once the melody players set it. But if they start to take off, do you follow or do you keep the original tempo? It can be a no win situation for the drummer. You either follow the tune into the stratoshere or you loose sync trying to hold the temp. Either way, you end up looking like the ars.
Yes, a late friend - an older lady who had MS (and was a fine musician) - shocked people by reclaimed this word years before she died because she hated the word "disabled". She used to say that it was mainly her legs that were affected, not her mind. But it does really refer to inability to walk.
The word generally came to be regarded as pejorative when used for people, in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada during the 1960s. Of late, however, some disabled people and disability activists have taken to using the word "cripple" for themselves in an attempt to "reclaim" the word from a historically prejudiced society, much like gays and blacks sometimes use "dyke" or "nigger" in this manner. In other English-speaking countries, the term is still widely used without pejorative connotations. Cripple is also a transitive verb, meaning "cause a disability or inability".
so, when such a group uses such a word about one another it usually means it's ok for them to use the word about each, but not for people outside the group to use it about them.
Evelyn Glennie doesn't wear shoes when she is performing and feels the music through her feet. She was a musical prodigy until she went deaf at about the age of 12. Whatever strategies she has developed, work amazingly well and we cannot see/hear what is going on in her head as she 'listens' or performs.
The same is true of lesser musicians and there is a danger in this debate of making statements on the experience of a very small sample;
One aweful bodhran/fiddle/guitar/banjo player we might have encountered etc. Unless we can loosen up there is no point in playing with people we don't know, which would be a hell of a loss - sometimes musically, but always socially.
I have shown people how to use the box in quiet corners of sessions, but not being such a basic instrument as a drum- they can get nowhere in the time allowed for such things. In an area where box playing is not common, they do not have the opportunity to learn from anybody unless they pay for lessons.
Then, I think this becomes less about folk or traditional music and more about being from a certain income bracket, because as mentioned above- boxes are not cheap. I think this is just wrong and unhealthy as far as any tradition goes. Musical capabilites aside, any tradition should be at least financially accessible to anyone from the general public who shows an interest.
The whistle (which I don't play, because I find I cannot swap from recorder fingering easily) is a more appropriate instrument with which to start learning irish tunes, than the box I play (D/G). It has taken me a long, long time to even begin to play a few tunes from the Irish tradition with any shade of credibility and I would have given up long ago had I not been able to feel I could join the session somehow. I feel for the nth time that it is not about profficiency on any instrument, it is about understanding the session and not pushing your individual take on it upon everyone else.
Everybody's circumstances are different - culturally and economically. In pub sessions, I would rather hear enthusiastic people trying hard to do it correctly, than po-faced circles of musicians, no matter how good they think they are, sitting resolutely with their backs to everyone. Save the exclusivity for private sessions.
before saying rude things about Evelyn Glennie, have a look at this : http://www.evelyn.co.uk/Evelyn_old/guidance/index.htm
And I'd rather have a good bodhran player than a bad fiddler or - worst - piper. The only thing about bodhran or percussion instrument is the feeling some people have, through lack of knowledge, that such an instrument is "easier" to play than another. which it is definitely not...
You can be a good driver or you can be a crap driver, but you're still classed as a driver. There are musicians on all types of musical instruments, who can play well, and there are musicians who can't play at all, but they're still classed as musicians (not by me however). As for the relevant question....watch the late Buddy Rich at work. Hear him tearing strips of some of the players in his band for playing badly. Then tell me that the likes of him are not musicians. Unfortunately as far as playing Traditional music, then you don't have to be a good musician to join in. You only need to be able to play a few tunes, know a few basic chords on a guitar, or bang along with one stick on a goat skin, and you're in. To be a good drummer or bodhran player in the Traditional mode, you should really have a good knowledge of the tunes being played. Otherwise how can you interpet each individual tune, and they are all different.. There are many great players out there but there are also too many bangers who just hit and hope for the best. Hence we keep getting discussions like this one.
Are all bodhran players drummers?
Only one bodhran player that has ever come to our session, John, is good and is a pleasure to play with. Every single other one has been tolerated but that's all. John is a musician the others are most definitely not. They have got no clue whatsoever about the music they're damaging and no idea how weakening it is for the actual musicians when they walk through the door with their 'instrument' and bag of sh*te tools.
To those who feel that all sessions, everywhere, should be inclusive and welcoming to all comers but have some axe to grind with session alpha-type players who may have told you to feck off in the past: start your own session, and try to run it your way.
Quit whining about how you're not empowered, and empower yourselves to do something about it. No excuses.
Thanks Nikita for the brilliant clip of Evelyn Glennie.
@seosamh I'm not sure if you were referring to my post, but I don't recall ever being told to 'feck off' by any alph players as you term them.
Noone has to the right to consider themselves in control of a public session even if they have been the instigator - that just smacks of the playground. Yes if people don't like it they shouldn't bother and can go elsewhere, but no single person has the right to tell them to go. I wouldn't dream of starting a session and 'running it' my way. Sessions happen when a few folk get together to play music and as such they develop their own sets of rules gradually.
I have every right to tell someone to stop playing if they deserve it. I do it often. And thanked for it often also. And I don't care if you think I don't have the right. I'll do it anyway.
Any potentially good musician would want to know how is there playing, the good as well as the poor. Otherwise the potential is utterly dependent on what is going on in the musicians' mind alone. Fair play though, not all feedback is beneficial. Some are little better than trying to learn from a nervous display of emotion.
Perhaps this is the ideal site for all those vain and conceited Session Bullies, who are impressed by their own self importance & like to throw their weight around!
Dick, I don't drink anything requiring me to accept their conditions. Ironic, eh?
"sorry - do you mean collectively, or are people relying on one person's judgement?" Clarity is what is important. A single voice is often a good way to convey meaning. That's not to imply that others' in the session shouldn't express their own thoughts. Though everyone speaking at the same time communicates the least. Hope I'm clear. ;)
I'm going to go and read some Jane Austin, just as a counterbalance and until I can regain my equilibrium. I'm sure Mr D'Arcy played the bodhran. Maybe if we all swooned when someone played badly instead of telling them to FO.
There are gentler and more effective ways of pointing out imperfections in polite society.
I think we agreed that musicians can be drummers, but not all people who play an instrument (including bodhran), are musicians.
Oh and there will always be snobbery about things we feel ownership of as we don't want our ideal image of it tainted or spoiled by other people - we want to wreck it all by ourselves (preferably in a dark room away from the rest of us).
In the "polite" society of a jane austin novel, it takes a whole feckin book for the couple who met in the first half of the first chapter to get it together. The world would be a much better place of people's pride and prejudices were washed clean away before we even opened the book.
Pride is certainly a two way street. Pride in oneself for a deed well done is admirable, self respecting. Pride taken the other direction of inflated sense of self becomes arrogant snobbery. Preconcieved prejudice is as unfair as it gets. It would behoove all of us to treat each other with respect everywhere we go. Respect can be contagious. Treat others with it first and we are much more likely to recieve it in return.
"Pride taken the other direction of inflated sense of self becomes arrogant snobbery" - surely that should go two ways. Usually when someone is ruining a session they are ruining it for the majority. I don't think it's arrogant to say that at least tune players make some sort of effort to learn the music whereas bodhran players more often than not just learn the bodhran so they can join in with people who've actually made the effort.
Saxophonists, xylophonists (if that is the correct word) and trombonists are musicians. Would they fit into a session? would they add to a session?
I'm not taking a hard stance against drumming here, I like bohran (sometimes, and depending upon the player to a much greater extent than for trad melody instruments). But rather rephrasing the OP question is a different manner.
Y kind of knows most of it but just needs to hear it a couple more times
Z is sitting in between them and begins playing the bodhran in the right rhythm and the right tempo. Bloody brilliant bodhran playing, first class. Some whoops from the punters (they love it).
X says something to Z about it.
Who is being disrespectful here?
Everyone seems to be quick to jump on X, when in reality, the rude behavior and disrespect comes from Z.
Yes. Respect. Give it and you'll get it back.
Are drummers musicians?
Do bears poop in the woods?
Does the Pope wear a pointy hat?
Is the session-dot-org a place for pontificating pugnacious prats?
"The world would be a much better place of people's pride and prejudices were washed clean away before we even opened the book."
Wham bam thank you ...
Very good point Michael. If I need to hear the tune a couple more times I appreciate anyone who shows me the respect & courtesy to allow me hear the tune. Which I cannot get from listening to the backer, no matter how brilliant.
The backers sensitivity is down to them not their instrument, which means that they should play very softly away from where they can see this sort of learning is taking place, or not at all if they are getting in the way. It is possible to convey the necessity for this without being offensive.
When I'm in the unfortunate situation where I have to ask people to stop playing, I'm polite, but straight forward. But remember, offence is taken, not given.
It does come down to "know your place". A good drummer should know when to not play as much as when to play. I carry a snare drum practice pad in my case to tap thru tunes new to the table so I work out my part without interfering with the melody players. nobody can hear it but me.
It's a real question and the answer is of course yes. And it goes to the heart of the redundancy of the bodhran. Yes, all good diddley musicians are drummers. The music is so packed full of rhythm. It is rhythm. It's melody with percussion incartate. Enclosed. Perfect
There are those that say that any musicians beyond the one solo musician are redundant, as solo playing is the heart of the tradition. This drew some rather heated discussion recently!
Re: llig's post~
"Does anyone know any musicians who carry around with them a silent version of their instrument? So they can noodle in silence?"
After a St. Patrick's gig in an English pub/restaurant a few days ago, the band and a few friends went to a ranch/winery for an after party/session. One of the players there was a bodhran player who alternated playing sets with the main bodhran player.
On the sets he wasn't playing, he was playing on a rectangular piece of wood with rubber on the other side. Must have been three inches by eight inches or so. He called it his 'practice drum' so he could play along and/or practice quietly when the needs arose.
First I've ever heard of a bodhran player having a 'practice' drum!
Considerate musicians do their 'practice' & 'noodling' at home .......... they 'PLAY' at Sessions!
Sure, it can be argued that there is an element of practicing in all playing, but there is a whole world of difference between the subtle elements of practice involved, when musicians are actually playing music with each other & anyone who is inconsiderate enough to be quite happy to annoy all around them, by practicing .............. or noodling at a session!
OK Sessions are indeed great places to learn, but I would suggest that for any newcomer to the session, the very first lesson they should take on board would be ....... how to respect their fellow musicians!
So, if they have an ounce of common sense & wish to be welcome anywhere in the session world, they should quickly learn not to noodle, or practice, ...... or for that matter, tell their fellow musicians to FO!
It started out as a bodhran-baiting romp and spiraled into the “are sessions performances” debate.
Comments now at 994. It formerly topped well over 1,000 but it became so contentious it caused some members to quit the site, and their posts were deleted.
The longer I read this board, the more it reminds me of a real session. Some topics are like tunes, played many times before but still enjoyable to thrash out again.
good point Ptarmigan. Maybe Jeremy will be willing to combine *Are Drummers Musicians?* along with several of the worm threads under one tab. Whenever someone wants to rant just click on *You asked for it*
Performance Semantics-Dots-Strummers-songs-folk music-trazz-tradpiper-general forum paranoia-USING CAPS!-miscellaneous slagging-etcetera ~
New tab? It could be a whole new website. But I hope not.
Enjoy your Sunday everybody.
Those were shot, back in the good old days, but, judging by this next clip, it looks like some things just never change ...... from 1:38 mins! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb5rTiDMWyA
No, Dick, no relation. My folks came from Sligo.
It was about ´69 or ´70 at a house session in a village near Listowel where I was lucky enough to find myself at a session with DM. I don´t remember the name of the village but the house owner´s name was Anne Sheehy, herself a musician if I remember rightly.
Well, I hadn't been to a session for ages, because of this kind of thing, and other musical problems, but I went to my final one and this is what it was like :
Are Drummers Musicians?
Are Drummers Musicians?
The prestigious musical competition, N.Ireland Young Musician of the Year, was recently won by a young man who plays.....Timpani/Kettle Drums.
Now this award contradicts some of the beliefs espoused on these hallowed pages, especially in relation to the bodhran.
So.....are drummers musicians?
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by bodhran bliss
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Some of them. But then I know plenty of people who grag guitars etc aroound with them who I wouldn't say were musicians
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Referring to rock bands, Richard Thompson once remarked that sometimes the drummer is the best musician in the band. I wouldn't argue with that.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Bob himself
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Re Guitars - there's plenty who pound 'em like a drum!!
Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!!
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Mr Hippy
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"Richard Thompson once remarked that sometimes the drummer is the best musician in the band"
When Brian Blade is in the band this is often the case.
However, I think the best answer to BB's question is, "sometimes, but not necessarily".
Or, one might say "drummers are musicians, but not all who carry drums are drummers". A friend of mine used to refer to certain players as "guitar owners". That seems apt, and applicable to many bodhran luggers as well.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Llig's right, those gragging guitarists are not musicians.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Sugarfoot Jack
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Q: What do you call a guy that hangs around with musicians?
A: A drummer.
I thank you!
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
The fact the Northern Irish Musicain of the Year plays the tymps is significant. There is a difference between tuned percussion players and the others...
Tuned percussion: piano, marimba, xylophone, vibes, tymps et cetera need as much musicianly understanding as any other instrument you play tunes on.
Another similar question is: Are vocalists musicians?
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
How do you know when there's a singer at the door?
She can't find her key, and she doesn't know when to come in.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
To be a good drummer, you have to be a good musician. Many drum kit players I have played with in bands have been able to play all manner of other instruments and this informs their drum playing. If the drummer doesn't understand music (melody, notes & chords) he's at a disadvantage. (hence the other old joke- Q: Why do you have a bass player in the band A: to translate what the lead six string devil twangler is saying to the drummer)
John Lennon was famously asked once in the 60's at a press conference whether Ringo was the best drummer in the world. Lennon answered that Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles!
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
There are plenty of jazz drummers who are most definitely musicians - listen to Jimmy Cobb, for instance, on 'Kind of Blue'.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Is a barnacle a ship?
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Good drummers are musicians. Bad drummers are just noisemakers.
And you didn't ask, but--drum machines, "beat makers," and DJs are not musicians, because computer-generated sound effects are not music.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by John Galt
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
exactly what I was going to say...the good ones are. Alot of the jazz drummers I worked with can play several instruments. One of the best piano players I know is the drummer in my trio right now
but you only get to play with drummers like that when you yourself are good enough to work with them
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Nate Ryan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"guitar owners"
I love that.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Bob himself
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
There are enough session "players" - fiddlers whistlers and so on - who, in my view, aren't musicians.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Rudall the time
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
What about good musical drummers who program drum machines?
And there was a piano player in the 1930s I think, can't remember his name. But he liked to get rolls of blank pianola paper and cut his own holes in it. He wrote pieces than would be impossible to play, so he got the machine to play it.
However, I'm remeinded of the classic joke:
Two DJs having a chat,
"Hey, d'you fancy going to see that new blockbuster at the multiplex tonight?"
"Oh I dunno ... who's the projectionist?"
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Maybe that's funny, as far as jokes go. We have a small movie theatre which, depending on the projectionist, the doors may open late . . . the film may be out of focus . . . the projectionist might leave the booth & not return in a timely fashion once the reels need to be changed . . .
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
A musician is a musician. Period. It does not matter what instrument that they choose to play. Pokes and jabs at each other in the atmosphere of fun are good craic. When the pokes and jabs get disrespectful, it's plain old rude and mean. If I ever play a projector I want to play it just like Marcel did in Inglorius Basterds. Burn baby burn.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
I have met a few of those people who drag guitars around with them but they can't be called "musicians" without stretching that particular term to the breaking point. Usually, these are people who have oversized egos and undersized talent.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by fauxcelt
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
This thread is just begging for the snobs to come out of the woodwork.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Jimmy B
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
A bodhran is 'tuned' percussion in the right hands and should be tuned up just like any other instrument.
My son's a kit drummer and a very good one. He manages to earn money through playing and teaching so must be doing something right. He also won the senior bodhran competition at Sidmouth fest when he was 13 year old. Of course he's a musician. Singers are also musicians - why this same old daft question - whether good or bad. Nobody has defined the term so we're all talking from our own individual standpoint, although I'm beginning to realise that this seems to be half the fun of the mustard boards.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
The word "musician" when looked up, has several definiations, each with a central meaning but with several different connotations or implications. This debate is rigged for semantic explosion from the outset. But, yes, as eiluned pointed out, that is part of the fun of the mustard boards.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Jimmy B
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
The issue with the bodhran is that a poor player sometimes doesn't know they're crap. A poor fiddler knows they're crap. The bodhran guy just keeps wackin'.
People think that anyone can play it, but they can't.
A good player adds as much to the music as anyone else, and is missed when they're not playing. Especially if they're replaced by the wacker.
The road to bodhran respect is long, but we'll get there.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by mainiac
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
What's the difference between a drummer and a toilet seat?
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
http://www.agababa.net/instruments/riq.asp
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Q: What's the difference between a musician and a large pizza?
A: The large pizza can feed a family of three.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Jimmy B
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
A toilet seat only has to put up with one bum at a time.
Sorry - my finishing school was sadly lacking.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"A poor fiddler knows they're crap. The bodhran guy just keeps wackin'"
I know plenty of fiddlers who just keep scratching. Personally I wouldn't have it any other way - they will all improve given time and patience.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Ah, but will the drummer?
Quoth the Leahcim: Nevermore!
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Drummers yes. Bodhran owners no.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by robertw
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"Ah, but will the drummer?" Depends on whether they develop the art of listening - and how diplomatically they are told that what they may be doing is inappropriate.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Do the scratchn' and wackn' at home, not at the session. unless the session encourages that level of play.
listen to the level of your playing and accept it . Fit in where you can and recognize where you can't fit in.....yet.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by mainiac
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
@mainiac
I agree and there are sessions and sessions. But nobody's game is ever raised unless they are permitted to play sometimes with people who are better than they are.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Is maniac saying that all players of instruments who play them badly should stay at home or just bad drummers?
I think that drummers are undoubtedly musicians.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by sligeach
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Perhaps this question should be turned around to ask if musicians are drummers or if musicians are singers?
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by fauxcelt
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Session playing is a long way from just being about the music. There is a whole social side and purpose which people often forget. It's an outlet for ordinary people which isn't governed by the need to make money or controlled by anyone other than the group (unless you take into account the ridiculous licensing laws in this country). Long may the inept scrape, squeeze and thump and may drunken punters at the bar contribute half a verse of The Fields of Athenry just so that they can get to stretch the first few words of the chorus like bubble gum stuck to your foot.
Deep joy! It can be a hell of a laugh. BUT I do need the music as well.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"A bodhran is 'tuned' percussion in the right hands and should be tuned up just like any other instrument."
Um, if you mean "tuned" as in "tuned to a pitch", I'm afraid that's not what those tuning lugs are for.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
It can be made so the open skin is a D note. I'm not always that concientious about doing it, but it sometimes can add an extra accuracy to the low woomph sparingly used.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
I feel that players need to be honest about they're ability no matter what they play. I agree that to get better, one of the best ways is to play with higher quality players. But players need to know what rung of the ladder they're on.
What I think is a main reason for the "bodhran stigma" is the notion that it's "easy" to play , so anyone can play it. People off the street look at a session and say " Hey, I can play that". Not really and not well 99% of the time.
The bodhran is my session instrument and I feel the added weight of the "stigma" when getting together with new players. It's fine once the playing starts, but the eyes burn right through me sometimes.
I firmly agree that I would not be half the player if I didn't play with others better than myself. But I always feel consious of my contribution(or lack of) to the music.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by mainiac
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Sound is a series of vibrations.
Music is made by organising sounds in a way that evokes an emotional response.
Musicians are people who play music.
If a musician plays music on a drum they are still a musician.
If a non-musician plays a drum they are still not a musician, (but may have potential for the future).
p.s. if the emotional response is unintentional - like "why the hell did they play that!" it is not music, but if the intention was to p*ss people off it is
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by farmerboy
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
p.p.s. Can't resist:
How do you know there's a drummer at the door - the knocking gets faster.
How do you know when the stage is level - the drummer dribbles out of both sides at once
The difference between a bodhran and an onion - your eyes water when you peel an onion.
The difference between a bodhran and a trampoline - you take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.
Sorry, but I just couldn't let it lie.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by farmerboy
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"It can be made so the open skin is a D note."
Backing away from this one... if you think that discrete pitches from a bodhran are a good idea, there's no hope of even civil disagreement here. Best of luck.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
It's true that the bodhran can 'seem' to be the easy way in to playing in a session. I will even lend my drum to folk new to the session who are sitting there obviously feeling ill at ease because they can't play anything. However, I'm very careful about who I lend it to and have to feel sure a) that they'll readily give it back without a fight b) they are listening properly and will allow me to show them what to do if they've never done it before c) will take on board that they are beginners and need to play very quietly so as not to infuriate the other players. I'm quite happy to lend it to someone who is already a musician in another genre.
This is a better way of doing things than suffering someone coming into a session with a drum which they've never played before who then beats hell out of it randomly, because they haven't been shown the right way.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Hi Jon
It may be to do with style of playing. I don't play the crisp run up and down the scale sort of stuff - which I like a lot in the hands of someone like JJ Kelly. I've never learned how to go about that and I don't think my drum is quite right for it anyway.
Put it this way, the musicians I've played with seem OK with it and have not complained even though I ask if I'm intrusive rather than supportive. I play more tunes than bodhran now, but can freely admit that playing the drum was a way into session music for me. It did help that I was a musician before ever coming to sessions though.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Any one old enough to remember an old quiz show on UK telly called "face the music"? It was quite a high brow classical music thing. They had this round where the quiz master, an accomplished pianist, had this dummy keyboard thing that was like a full set of piano keys but no mechanism or strings etc. It just made a kind of clacherty noise. Each week the quiz master would play a famous piano piece on it and the contestants had to guess what it was.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Two DJs having a chat,
"Hey, d'you fancy going to see that new blockbuster at the multiplex tonight?"
"Oh I dunno ... who's the projectionist?"
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by llig leahcim
That's very funny Michael, and surprisingly, new to me.
But you were on here at a record speed to say that drummers were musicians which is worrying.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by bodhran bliss
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
This thread is just begging for the snobs to come out of the woodwork.
# Posted on March 18th 2010 by Jimmy B
Is it? Gosh, I never thought of that.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by bodhran bliss
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Are internet posters a form of intelligent life?
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by AlBrown
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Some percentage of them are, I suppose. That percentage started dropping in the early 1990s, and has been going down ever since, though. That whole Eternal September thing. Why do you ask?
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
I don't have a problem with someone learning to play bodhran. However, IMHO, anyone who wants to play only the bodhran throughout an entire session is missing out on a lot of what Irish traditional music is about. These tunes are so worth getting to know.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Are Melody Wonks real people?
Think back on those times when the music absolutely hooted along. Precision, definition, colour,cohesion all happening beautifully.
Not perfectly, but good enough to bring a tear to a glass eye.
Whatever makes that happen is good.
I am sure I am not the only bodhran player who has "gotten to know the tunes" and can make a worthwhile contribution.
Learners, on the other hand are just another obstacle to overcome, it's all part of the craft, if you keep your own playing clear and true they will eventually catch up. No problem.
I repeat NO PROBLEM, so stop trying to make it one. Take some viagra eyedrops and have a long hard look at yourself.
If you continue to find fault with the people you play with there is something wrong with YOU.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by mcknowall
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
My Bliss, of course drummers are musicians, and you know darn well that I've championed certain bodhran playing in recording and performance settings. In the right hands, the thing can ad great colour. And as you are so fond of saying - and I am powerless to disagree with such a profundity of it - punters love 'em.
And you also know that I'm utterly disinterested in the debate about the tolerance/intolerance of people who can't play the bodhran. It's no different to the arguments about the tollerance/intollerance of people who can't play fiddles, guitars etc. Practice zero tolerance and there's no problem.
My particular gripe is with the bodhran's contribution to the small ensemble sharing of diddley tunes. Contrary to what bodhran players often think, it most profoundly does not add precision, definition or cohesion. Quite the reverse, the thing is a specific and most irritating block to precision, definition and cohesion. It adds nothing to the tunes. Not one thing. All the rhythm, all of it, absolutely every last bit of rhythm is in the tunes already. End of story. The contribution of the bodhran is to make it harder to hear the tune and that's that.
And as for the bodhran player who has "gotten to know the tunes". WELL FECKIN PLAY THE FECKIN TUNES THEN.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"If you continue to find fault with the people you play with there is something wrong with YOU."
Sometimes you don't find fault, sometimes fault finds you.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
No, but some musicians are drummers.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Hup
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
No, drummers are smurfs.
http://bluebuddies.com/gallery/Black_and_White_Smurf_Pictures/jpg/Smurfs_Picture_Smurf_Drummer.jpg
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Blast, that cutesy link didn't work. try this
http://bluebuddies.com/Smurfs_Black_and_White_Smurf_Pictures-49.htm
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Eiluned made a good point when he said: Session playing is a long way from just being about the music. There is a whole social side and purpose ... "
I think this can be one of the most endearing qualities of many open sessions, at least those that aren't riddled with elitism & snobbery, & perhaps it is the one which draws many people to sessions & inspires them to want to join in & make the effort to learn to play this music, in the first place.
Unfortunately though, in some cases, this desire would appear to be far stronger than what I would see as the more obvious & natural one, of actually wanting to be able to play the music well enough to be able to contribute to the overall sound in a valuable & meaningful way.
So this desire to take part, sometimes gets the better of many people who jump in far, far too early & with percussion instruments being seen as the easiest entry level instruments, I reckon they are always going to be more abused than most other, more expensive instruments.
Having said that, of course drummers are musicians. Regardless of the instrument, you get good & bad musicians, no matter what musical instrument they are playing.
One of the most inspiring musicians I know is Evelyn Glennie ..... I rest my case!
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Spot on, Dick ! I do think percussion is the most difficult instrument to play, and percussionist are musicians, and they have to be good musicians too... Then you have to make people understand that... we do a lot of "coaching2 in our session, with newbies who arrive with a bodhran, showing them to play softly, to listen to the melodies.... and it gets along quite nicely.
Ho, and I fall in love with Evelyn Glennie everytime I hera or see her... she's truly one of the best musicians I know !
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Nikita Pfister
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
I think there's maybe a bit more leeway to be given to bodhran players. When a new guitarist joins the session the other guitarists there give them a bit of space and let them lead the chords, or alternatively they just sit out the tune. A fiddle/box etc player may play more quietly in order to hear the others playing the tune. Maybe if we let the bodhran take a more leading role in the session, they'll back off and play WITH the session in the same way we all do and take some responsibility for the overall sound. As long as there is resistance to the instrument and a battle commences for them to get acknowledged, there'll be no sense of responsibility or, more importantly, "session" for anyone.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by farmerboy
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
option 1:
Evelyn Glennie = painting by numbers. Music is sound. She's deaf.
option 2:
Evelyn Glennie = fraud. She ain't nearly as deaf as her publicity machine makes her out to be.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
How would you know?
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by leoj
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Music is also vibration which I don't need to hear to feel.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by DonaldK
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Although, of course, in my case I prefer to hear it.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by DonaldK
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"It's true that the bodhran can 'seem' to be the easy way in to playing in a session. I will even lend my drum to folk new to the session who are sitting there obviously feeling ill at ease because they can't play anything. However, I'm very careful about who I lend it to and have to feel sure a) that they'll readily give it back without a fight b) they are listening properly and will allow me to show them what to do if they've never done it before c) will take on board that they are beginners and need to play very quietly so as not to infuriate the other players."
I see from your bio that you also play the box. Dt made me wonder if you would lend that out to people who can't play anything?
Recently I sat opposite a bodhran player who didn't have a clue. I thought maybe he was having trouble getting the rhythm he wanted using the tipper, as he was obviously new to the instrument. Then he swapped instruments to play an upright type drum, with no improvement........
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by minijackpot
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"Maybe if we let the bodhran take a more leading role in the session, they'll back off and play WITH the session in the same way we all do and take some responsibility for the overall sound."
Huh?
How do you "let the bodhran take a more leading role" at a session?
"What do you want to play?"
*thumpity thump, thump* and then *thump thwack thumpity*
"Ah, the Mossy Banks into Rolling in the Ryegrass. Off we go then."
P*ss-taking aside, I don't get how anyone taking a "leading role" at a session = having more responsibility to the "overall sound." Plenty of melody players don't take responsibility for that, either! In any case, a good drummer isn't going to trainwreck the overall sound (I kinda agree with Michael about it not adding much and playing the fecking tunes, but in real life I'm not really fecked off when one joins a session so long as they have a clue). It's the ones who just see it as an easy way in who you have to watch out for.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"One of the most inspiring musicians I know is Evelyn Glennie ..... I rest my case!"
I think you'll find Evlyn Glennie is a percussionist, not a drummer.
Percussionists are musicians - they spend just as many years in the conservatoire as violinists or flautists. They understand music, and their instrument, in exactly the same way as other musicians.
Drummers are people who get a strange urge to hit things when they hear music..
Drummers are people who
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by skreech
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
How would I know about Evelyn Glennie?
I don't know. That's why I proffered the two options. I'll gladly consider a third?
And sure, a good drummer isn't going to trainwreck the overall sound. But there's a world of difference between a trainwreck and that particular freedom you get when all the tune players can really hear each other clearly and distinctly. Even the best bodhran player in the world interfears with this.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Aye, I agree in principle. But as I said, I'm not too bothered when one joins a session so long as they know what they're doing.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
And that "leading role" thing surely is a windup.
I asked a drummer to stop the other week because he was playing out of time. He took a right humph, the feckin eedjit. He said it was the tune players who were playing out of time with him.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
I think a lot of not so good tune players like to hide behind a good bodhran player. It makes life easy for them
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
I would class myself as a not so good tune player but I find I HAVE to keep my timing spot-on when I play with a bodhran (I mean, I try to keep it spot on anyway but I have moments where it will all go pear-shaped). You can't "lean" on them. They are leaning on you. So if your timing gets wavery, they totally lose the plot. Conversely I've played with many guitarists who can keep it together even when I stumble, which is handy sometimes.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
What gets on my thrupenny bits is when you tell a bodhran player (who may well have good basic rhythm) that you are going to paly a couple of hornpipes - the unsyncopated variety - like slowed down reels - then the pace starts to speed up to reel pace, and the effect of the nice little triplets in the 2nd parts are lost because it all goes whooshing past the listener(s) like an express train. Musicians? Geezabrek.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Rudall the time
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Evelyn Glennie ... surely sinking to an all time low this time llig, looking down your nose at a cripple!
I suppose you would have snubbed Django Reinhardt too!
No doubt he was a fraud too, because folks said he only had two fingers, but his other two were only badly deformed & partially paralyzed ... not missing at all!
Jeeeez!
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
@ llig- You used the words "good bodhran player". WOW, would that be concidered a breakthrough?
@Silver Spear- I agree. One issue for me is sometimes I'm asked to keep the tempo for the tune once the melody players set it. But if they start to take off, do you follow or do you keep the original tempo? It can be a no win situation for the drummer. You either follow the tune into the stratoshere or you loose sync trying to hold the temp. Either way, you end up looking like the ars.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by mainiac
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
a "cripple"?
Who's doing the insulting now?
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Rudall the time
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Danny: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Yes, a late friend - an older lady who had MS (and was a fine musician) - shocked people by reclaimed this word years before she died because she hated the word "disabled". She used to say that it was mainly her legs that were affected, not her mind. But it does really refer to inability to walk.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by RichardB
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Yes, exactly, Dick. Read what it says:
The word generally came to be regarded as pejorative when used for people, in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada during the 1960s. Of late, however, some disabled people and disability activists have taken to using the word "cripple" for themselves in an attempt to "reclaim" the word from a historically prejudiced society, much like gays and blacks sometimes use "dyke" or "nigger" in this manner. In other English-speaking countries, the term is still widely used without pejorative connotations. Cripple is also a transitive verb, meaning "cause a disability or inability".
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Rudall the time
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
typo: "reclaiming"
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by RichardB
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
so, when such a group uses such a word about one another it usually means it's ok for them to use the word about each, but not for people outside the group to use it about them.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Rudall the time
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
But which scenario is correct for Evelyn Glennie? Or can you proffer a third?
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Evelyn Glennie doesn't wear shoes when she is performing and feels the music through her feet. She was a musical prodigy until she went deaf at about the age of 12. Whatever strategies she has developed, work amazingly well and we cannot see/hear what is going on in her head as she 'listens' or performs.
The same is true of lesser musicians and there is a danger in this debate of making statements on the experience of a very small sample;
One aweful bodhran/fiddle/guitar/banjo player we might have encountered etc. Unless we can loosen up there is no point in playing with people we don't know, which would be a hell of a loss - sometimes musically, but always socially.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
I have shown people how to use the box in quiet corners of sessions, but not being such a basic instrument as a drum- they can get nowhere in the time allowed for such things. In an area where box playing is not common, they do not have the opportunity to learn from anybody unless they pay for lessons.
Then, I think this becomes less about folk or traditional music and more about being from a certain income bracket, because as mentioned above- boxes are not cheap. I think this is just wrong and unhealthy as far as any tradition goes. Musical capabilites aside, any tradition should be at least financially accessible to anyone from the general public who shows an interest.
The whistle (which I don't play, because I find I cannot swap from recorder fingering easily) is a more appropriate instrument with which to start learning irish tunes, than the box I play (D/G). It has taken me a long, long time to even begin to play a few tunes from the Irish tradition with any shade of credibility and I would have given up long ago had I not been able to feel I could join the session somehow. I feel for the nth time that it is not about profficiency on any instrument, it is about understanding the session and not pushing your individual take on it upon everyone else.
Everybody's circumstances are different - culturally and economically. In pub sessions, I would rather hear enthusiastic people trying hard to do it correctly, than po-faced circles of musicians, no matter how good they think they are, sitting resolutely with their backs to everyone. Save the exclusivity for private sessions.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
before saying rude things about Evelyn Glennie, have a look at this :
http://www.evelyn.co.uk/Evelyn_old/guidance/index.htm
And I'd rather have a good bodhran player than a bad fiddler or - worst - piper. The only thing about bodhran or percussion instrument is the feeling some people have, through lack of knowledge, that such an instrument is "easier" to play than another. which it is definitely not...
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Nikita Pfister
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
You can be a good driver or you can be a crap driver, but you're still classed as a driver. There are musicians on all types of musical instruments, who can play well, and there are musicians who can't play at all, but they're still classed as musicians (not by me however). As for the relevant question....watch the late Buddy Rich at work. Hear him tearing strips of some of the players in his band for playing badly. Then tell me that the likes of him are not musicians. Unfortunately as far as playing Traditional music, then you don't have to be a good musician to join in. You only need to be able to play a few tunes, know a few basic chords on a guitar, or bang along with one stick on a goat skin, and you're in. To be a good drummer or bodhran player in the Traditional mode, you should really have a good knowledge of the tunes being played. Otherwise how can you interpet each individual tune, and they are all different.. There are many great players out there but there are also too many bangers who just hit and hope for the best. Hence we keep getting discussions like this one.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Free Reed
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Are all bodhran players drummers?
Only one bodhran player that has ever come to our session, John, is good and is a pleasure to play with. Every single other one has been tolerated but that's all. John is a musician the others are most definitely not. They have got no clue whatsoever about the music they're damaging and no idea how weakening it is for the actual musicians when they walk through the door with their 'instrument' and bag of sh*te tools.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by bogman
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Thisw is all very good and enlightening, but are Drummers musicians?
All this postulating and such, a simple yes or no would suffice.
sometimes facing up to the truth, and saying it, can be the first step.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by bodhran bliss
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Are drummers musicians? Yes.
Are bodhran players musicians? Not the ones at your average or even above average session
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by bogman
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
To those who feel that all sessions, everywhere, should be inclusive and welcoming to all comers but have some axe to grind with session alpha-type players who may have told you to feck off in the past: start your own session, and try to run it your way.
Quit whining about how you're not empowered, and empower yourselves to do something about it. No excuses.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Thanks Nikita for the brilliant clip of Evelyn Glennie.
@seosamh I'm not sure if you were referring to my post, but I don't recall ever being told to 'feck off' by any alph players as you term them.
Noone has to the right to consider themselves in control of a public session even if they have been the instigator - that just smacks of the playground. Yes if people don't like it they shouldn't bother and can go elsewhere, but no single person has the right to tell them to go. I wouldn't dream of starting a session and 'running it' my way. Sessions happen when a few folk get together to play music and as such they develop their own sets of rules gradually.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
seems an above average session would be capable of letting someone know if he or she is not regarded as a musician. or am I missing something?
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
In a rural area, for example, it may not be as simple as that Random_notes.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by bogman
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Hi Random,
sorry - do you mean collectively, or are people relying on one person's judgement?
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
I have every right to tell someone to stop playing if they deserve it. I do it often. And thanked for it often also. And I don't care if you think I don't have the right. I'll do it anyway.
Deserve it? You ask. Deserve it in whose opinion?
Mine
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
But how many potentially good musicians might you put off by just being that bit too blunt?
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Any potentially good musician would want to know how is there playing, the good as well as the poor. Otherwise the potential is utterly dependent on what is going on in the musicians' mind alone. Fair play though, not all feedback is beneficial. Some are little better than trying to learn from a nervous display of emotion.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Perhaps this is the ideal site for all those vain and conceited Session Bullies, who are impressed by their own self importance & like to throw their weight around!
Elitist Jerks! http://elitistjerks.com/
..... & perhaps this is what they should be drinking!
Arrogant Bastard Ale! http://www.arrogantbastard.com/
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Dick, I don't drink anything requiring me to accept their conditions. Ironic, eh?
"sorry - do you mean collectively, or are people relying on one person's judgement?" Clarity is what is important. A single voice is often a good way to convey meaning. That's not to imply that others' in the session shouldn't express their own thoughts. Though everyone speaking at the same time communicates the least. Hope I'm clear. ;)
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
I'm going to go and read some Jane Austin, just as a counterbalance and until I can regain my equilibrium. I'm sure Mr D'Arcy played the bodhran. Maybe if we all swooned when someone played badly instead of telling them to FO.
There are gentler and more effective ways of pointing out imperfections in polite society.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
I think we agreed that musicians can be drummers, but not all people who play an instrument (including bodhran), are musicians.
Oh and there will always be snobbery about things we feel ownership of as we don't want our ideal image of it tainted or spoiled by other people - we want to wreck it all by ourselves (preferably in a dark room away from the rest of us).
opinions?
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by farmerboy
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
In the "polite" society of a jane austin novel, it takes a whole feckin book for the couple who met in the first half of the first chapter to get it together. The world would be a much better place of people's pride and prejudices were washed clean away before we even opened the book.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Pride is certainly a two way street. Pride in oneself for a deed well done is admirable, self respecting. Pride taken the other direction of inflated sense of self becomes arrogant snobbery. Preconcieved prejudice is as unfair as it gets. It would behoove all of us to treat each other with respect everywhere we go. Respect can be contagious. Treat others with it first and we are much more likely to recieve it in return.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Feelings...nothing more than feelings...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyBcHUe4WeQ
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"Pride taken the other direction of inflated sense of self becomes arrogant snobbery" - surely that should go two ways. Usually when someone is ruining a session they are ruining it for the majority. I don't think it's arrogant to say that at least tune players make some sort of effort to learn the music whereas bodhran players more often than not just learn the bodhran so they can join in with people who've actually made the effort.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by bogman
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Respect. Example:
X is playing a tune.
Z begins playing the bodhran in the wrong rhythm and/or wrong tempo.
X says something to Z about it.
Who is being disrespectful here?
Everyone seems to be quick to jump on X, when in reality, the rude behavior and disrespect comes from Z.
Yes. Respect. Give it and you'll get it back.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Saxophonists, xylophonists (if that is the correct word) and trombonists are musicians. Would they fit into a session? would they add to a session?
I'm not taking a hard stance against drumming here, I like bohran (sometimes, and depending upon the player to a much greater extent than for trad melody instruments). But rather rephrasing the OP question is a different manner.
- chris
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
X is playing a tune.
Y kind of knows most of it but just needs to hear it a couple more times
Z is sitting in between them and begins playing the bodhran in the right rhythm and the right tempo. Bloody brilliant bodhran playing, first class. Some whoops from the punters (they love it).
X says something to Z about it.
Who is being disrespectful here?
Everyone seems to be quick to jump on X, when in reality, the rude behavior and disrespect comes from Z.
Yes. Respect. Give it and you'll get it back.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Are drummers musicians?
Do bears poop in the woods?
Does the Pope wear a pointy hat?
Is the session-dot-org a place for pontificating pugnacious prats?
-Yes
Hope that answers your question Bliss
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"The world would be a much better place of people's pride and prejudices were washed clean away before we even opened the book."
Wham bam thank you ...
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Very good point Michael. If I need to hear the tune a couple more times I appreciate anyone who shows me the respect & courtesy to allow me hear the tune. Which I cannot get from listening to the backer, no matter how brilliant.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
The backers sensitivity is down to them not their instrument, which means that they should play very softly away from where they can see this sort of learning is taking place, or not at all if they are getting in the way. It is possible to convey the necessity for this without being offensive.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
When I'm in the unfortunate situation where I have to ask people to stop playing, I'm polite, but straight forward. But remember, offence is taken, not given.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
It does come down to "know your place". A good drummer should know when to not play as much as when to play. I carry a snare drum practice pad in my case to tap thru tunes new to the table so I work out my part without interfering with the melody players. nobody can hear it but me.
Awareness and maturity are helpful here.
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by mainiac
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"If a bodhran player plays in the forest, and no one is around to hear...
is it still off beat?"
Full credit given to our own Reverend Pete, who carries these wonderful T-shirts that poke fun of ALL the session players...
http://www.cafepress.com/ITMgoodies/
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by fiddlerdan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Does anyone know any musicians who carry around with them a silent version of their instrument? So they can noodle in silence?
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by llig leahcim
In silence?
Re: "Bad reed?"
Posted on December 14th 2009 by the wicked hacker
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/23349/comments#comment485558
# Posted on March 19th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"Does anyone know any musicians who carry around with them a silent version of their instrument? So they can noodle in silence?"
You mean like a fiddler bringing a mandolin?
# Posted on March 20th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Are all musicians...*drummers*?
I rather suspect they are.
I shall not hang around, but flee hence...
# Posted on March 20th 2010 by nicholas
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
It's a real question and the answer is of course yes. And it goes to the heart of the redundancy of the bodhran. Yes, all good diddley musicians are drummers. The music is so packed full of rhythm. It is rhythm. It's melody with percussion incartate. Enclosed. Perfect
# Posted on March 20th 2010 by llig leahcim
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
So the next question, if all musicians are drummers, is obviously "are musicians who are only drummers redundant?"
# Posted on March 20th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
It depends on the music of course. But with diddley music they most certainly are.
# Posted on March 20th 2010 by llig leahcim
A session full of drummers ~ brilliant!
And there was me thinking a drummer was someone who plays a drum. This is milked 'til the cow runs dry.
# Posted on March 20th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
There are those that say that any musicians beyond the one solo musician are redundant, as solo playing is the heart of the tradition. This drew some rather heated discussion recently!
# Posted on March 20th 2010 by AlBrown
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
And if that solo musician is a bodhran player?
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by mcknowall
Re: silent instruments
Re: llig's post~
"Does anyone know any musicians who carry around with them a silent version of their instrument? So they can noodle in silence?"
After a St. Patrick's gig in an English pub/restaurant a few days ago, the band and a few friends went to a ranch/winery for an after party/session. One of the players there was a bodhran player who alternated playing sets with the main bodhran player.
On the sets he wasn't playing, he was playing on a rectangular piece of wood with rubber on the other side. Must have been three inches by eight inches or so. He called it his 'practice drum' so he could play along and/or practice quietly when the needs arose.
First I've ever heard of a bodhran player having a 'practice' drum!
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by fiddlerdan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Considerate musicians do their 'practice' & 'noodling' at home .......... they 'PLAY' at Sessions!
Sure, it can be argued that there is an element of practicing in all playing, but there is a whole world of difference between the subtle elements of practice involved, when musicians are actually playing music with each other & anyone who is inconsiderate enough to be quite happy to annoy all around them, by practicing .............. or noodling at a session!
OK Sessions are indeed great places to learn, but I would suggest that for any newcomer to the session, the very first lesson they should take on board would be ....... how to respect their fellow musicians!
So, if they have an ounce of common sense & wish to be welcome anywhere in the session world, they should quickly learn not to noodle, or practice, ...... or for that matter, tell their fellow musicians to FO!
It all about manners really!
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"This is milked 'til the cow runs dry"
Apparently not! Are we going for some sort of record?
By the way what is the record for contentious thread postings?
Sorry that should be a new discussion.
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by eiluned
Guinness Book Record for drummers discussions?
My bad! Should have said we're flogging a dead goat.
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Hey, if we could just keep this one going, it'd save us ever having to start another Bodhran discussion here, ... ever again!
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Haha. “Record for contentious threads”? This one isn’t even close. Check out this legendary thread: “Dose anyone like bodhrans” http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/11933/comments#comment245956
It started out as a bodhran-baiting romp and spiraled into the “are sessions performances” debate.
Comments now at 994. It formerly topped well over 1,000 but it became so contentious it caused some members to quit the site, and their posts were deleted.
The longer I read this board, the more it reminds me of a real session. Some topics are like tunes, played many times before but still enjoyable to thrash out again.
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by fidkid
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
"By the way what is the record for contentious thread postings?
Sorry that should be a new discussion."
No it shouldn't. ;)
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Well, it's a Sunday and I'm going to go and use my foot spa - I feel like bucking up the feet!
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by eiluned
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
good point Ptarmigan. Maybe Jeremy will be willing to combine *Are Drummers Musicians?* along with several of the worm threads under one tab. Whenever someone wants to rant just click on *You asked for it*
Performance Semantics-Dots-Strummers-songs-folk music-trazz-tradpiper-general forum paranoia-USING CAPS!-miscellaneous slagging-etcetera ~
New tab? It could be a whole new website. But I hope not.
Enjoy your Sunday everybody.
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: That old tradition of the Bodhran taking the lead!
All the Bodhran players who feel that the Bodhran's place is out in front, will enjoy these clips!
Clare Session!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBwTNaGGPBE
Street Session!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGAfLuXeKfU
Those were shot, back in the good old days, but, judging by this next clip, it looks like some things just never change ...... from 1:38 mins!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb5rTiDMWyA
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
That´s a rare old clip of Dennis Murphy playing the fiddle in that street session.
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by murfbox
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Ah Ha, so that's who that is ... thanks!
...... any relation to your good self?
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on March 21st 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
No, Dick, no relation. My folks came from Sligo.
It was about ´69 or ´70 at a house session in a village near Listowel where I was lucky enough to find myself at a session with DM. I don´t remember the name of the village but the house owner´s name was Anne Sheehy, herself a musician if I remember rightly.
# Posted on March 22nd 2010 by murfbox
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Lucky, lucky you! He certainly was a wonderful musician.
# Posted on March 22nd 2010 by Ptarmigan
Re: Are Drummers Musicians?
Well, I hadn't been to a session for ages, because of this kind of thing, and other musical problems, but I went to my final one and this is what it was like :
http://www.worldfiddlemusic.com/guest/hammer-from-hell.mp3
I suppose there's a funny side to it to when you look back ...
Jim
# Posted on March 24th 2010 by Worldfiddler