How often is too often? What's your opinion on players who switch instrument before every tune? Are there certain combinations of instruments that are more acceptable to switch between than others?
Now, I've mentioned this before, but the senseless abuse of the poor eggs just has to stop. I don't think it's nice to call them "shaky" eggs, I'm sorry. It's just not PC. I prefer the term "stability-challenged" eggs. It’s certainly not their fault they’re so unstable. Perhaps with just a little help and kindness they could become fully functioning members of egg society.
Point taken - perhaps, "stability-challenged musical instrument"? I guess if you could keep them in egg boxes, it would help with both the stability and the distribution issues...
Eggsactly. Lurking to see how this one developed and guess what, an attack on shaky eggs, a rather easy target. How controversial is that?
Anyway I regularly change instruments even mid-set. I'm at a loss to understand why this would ever be the subject of debate or any controversy. Unless borne of sour grapes. Please prove me wrong.
Aw come on now, I'm getting a lot of mileage out of that PC joke. It's almost milked out, that cow is almost dry, just gimme a few more times and it'll be old.
Back to topic, you're right KML, how is this an issue...unless you're switching to instruments you can't play, that's the only issue I could see.
Make sure and bring a guitar, a banjo, two bouzoukis (one 4 course and one 5 course), a couple of whistles, definitely a bodhran and any new instruments you might be picking up along the way. That way you can showcase your vast musical abilities for everyone to appreciate!
Seriously, I don't see the problem in switching instruments. As llig and SWFL fiddler say, so long as there's room and you're really playing the things well, it would probably add to the music more than detract from it. If it's more of a nuisance, I can't imagine it would go over too well.
Ben, so you wish you could play the buggers? I don't think I've come across that one. It's not mentioned in Grove's dictionary of music, but it sounds like it's some sort of ethnic bagpipe thingie, possibly from Eastern Europe - Bulgaria, maybe?
Actually, you're right, Trevor. I just looked and, to my amazement, indeed it doesn't appear in Grove's. So, for the curious, here are some details of this fascinating instrument:
As you surmised, Trevor, the buggers did indeed originate in Bulgaria, around 930 AD (or CE as the PC would have it). They were the invention of the Bogomils, a Gnostic dualistic sect which spread from Bulgaria to most of Middle Eurpoe, where it remained popular until around the late 14th century.
The instrument was a mouth-blown form of bagpipes, and required notoriously huge amounts of breath, also requiring the player the maintain tremendous *pressure*. This led to several unfortunate effects.
Firstly, it was common for players to become extremely tired after only a short period of playing, often exclaiming, whilst leaning back suddenly in a heap on their benches "Jesus, I'm buggered". (Remember, they were a religious sect.)
Secondly, because of the huge back-pressure of air produced in playing the instrment, there was a tendency for players to exhibit an unusually high degree of flatulence. Some have argued that this is what later led to the unfortunate reputation attributed to the Bogomils in some quarters in a doubly unkind (and, to our modern way of thinking, dreadfully un-PC) jibe apparently invented by the mainstream church. This jibe was frequently hurled in the direction of young Bogomils, and has been suggested as a possible origin of the phrase "We'll get the little buggers".
Playing the buggers was so tiring that players frequently became quite hungry, leading eventually to such useages as "I'm a bugger for cream cakes".
And, again because of the enormous back-pressure produced when playing the instrument, as well as flatulence, worse results sometimes ensued, and players would sometimes leave in a precipitous haste in the direction of the nearest convenience. They were said to have "buggered off".
I hope you find the above notes useful. You will find a fuller explanation at the very helpful fansite for the instrument:
Ah, yes. That would explain the existence of a smaller version of the instrument known as the "silly buggers". Being easier to play, it would appear to be relatively common.
Of course, the largest version of the instrument would presumably be known as the "useless buggers", because it was impossible to play.
There was even, I believe, a sort of wraparound variety, with a great many pipes and two bags - the "hugger buggers".
And they used to hold sort of Medieval, knockout, talent contests to see who could become the most popular player. The most famous series of these contests was called "The Buggeration Factor".
And when quiet tunes were accompanied in confined spaces, the vertically-held buggers tended to be a lot louder thanks to freeing the constricted wind supply which you got when played in the regular position. Because the loud sound only happened with the buggers in the vertical position, the effect was known as "buggering up" the tune.
The great difficulty in playing the instrument led some to believe that playing the instrument - in *any* form - was, in fact, impossible. This led to the penning of that great medieval song:
"I would fain do aye for love
I'd travel to the nether regions and thence return
Yea, I would fain do aye for love
I would aye forswear falseness, though I burn
And I will aye remember your ethereal touch
I would fain do aye for love ...
... but I'll be buggered if I'm doing that."
Of course, the words have developed somewhat over the intervening years.
... then there were he "bugger-thugs", guys who would go around sabotaging or stealing the things. Not to be confused with "thug-buggers", who did certain things to thugs of the day not entirely appropriate to describe here. Then you had the "bugger-thug-buggers".
Hmmm ... never heard of that. I hope you're not taking the p*ss, Marty? This is a very serious and antique tradition we're talking about here.
I hope everyone can treat it with the seriousness and respect it deserves.
If I find that someone isn't, I'll arrange for them to be arrested by the Bogomils, and that's one way you *don't* want to be arrested. Paul Gascoigne was grabbed by the Bogomils once, and the memory of it haunts him to this day.
You need to adopt an ear for music Dexy. It can take time.
and Marty smith was not far off describing me. On a Sunday I bring one bodhran (they all sound the same?) one guitar, one mandolin, one whistle, SEVEN blues harps, one "lump of wood", and a bag full of stuff from "joint grease" (sic), long nosed pliers, kazoo, egg, batteries (not for the egg) and a long screwdriver (do not ask).
"Show me the road to Sandy Bell's" la, lah, la, lah.
According to Reuters, Nissan is developing a car that does away with the need to be able to drive in reverse:
"The leading Japanese carmaker recently unveiled the Pivo 2, a battery-powered concept car with a fully rotating cabin that makes going backwards obsolete, since the driver can turn to face the direction they need to go.
Its wheels also turn 90 degrees, making parking easier.
"With this easy-to-handle car, you can feel comfortable while driving," said Masahiko Tabe, senior manager of the advanced vehicle development group at Nissan Motors.
"You can go everywhere without worrying about your driving skills."
What a great idea--put more unskilled drivers on the road. What will they think of next...self-tipping bodhrans and player accordions? Just imagine each of us carrying a whole session-load of self steering instruments into the pubs. The session table will need to be a lazy susan.
Buggers are played at a high level as well... A former prime minister of Australia was said to have told a Japanese prime minister during negotiations, "I think you are playing funny buggers..." Apparently this caused consternation amongst the interpreters on the Japanese side. Eventually an interpreter whispered in the Japanese PM's ear, leading to dark looks and much sharp intake of breath from the PM.
Hawkie asked what had been said and was told the remark was translated as, "I think you are playing the amusing homosexual..."
Switching instruments during a session
Switching instruments during a session
How often is too often? What's your opinion on players who switch instrument before every tune? Are there certain combinations of instruments that are more acceptable to switch between than others?
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by mehitabel23
Re: Switching instruments during a session
I don't think it matters, unless they take up too much room. Or if you're that kind of eedjit who brings 10 whistles with 'em
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Switching instruments during a session
It's acceptable to switch instruments as often as you like, with as many instruments as you like, providing you can actually play all of them.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Ah, there's the rub ... wish I could play the buggers ...
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Switching instruments during a session
No need to bring multiple instruments. Just pass your instrumnets round one place after each set - or mid-set, if you want to be acrobatic about it.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Now, now Michael! Anyone might think you have a particular Edinburgh musician in mind there!
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Switching instruments during a session
I'm happy to bring my collection of shaky eggs to share!
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Now, I've mentioned this before, but the senseless abuse of the poor eggs just has to stop. I don't think it's nice to call them "shaky" eggs, I'm sorry. It's just not PC. I prefer the term "stability-challenged" eggs. It’s certainly not their fault they’re so unstable. Perhaps with just a little help and kindness they could become fully functioning members of egg society.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Point taken - perhaps, "stability-challenged musical instrument"? I guess if you could keep them in egg boxes, it would help with both the stability and the distribution issues...
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: Switching instruments during a session
think i prefer "musically challenged instability instrument". sort of captures the whole bag, eh?
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by dirtyheel
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Indeed, let's keep the eggs in the cartons (boxes) where they belong...or in my breakfast, either way. That's got to be the best place for them.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Switching instruments during a session
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by Nick Splease
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Eggsactly. Lurking to see how this one developed and guess what, an attack on shaky eggs, a rather easy target. How controversial is that?
Anyway I regularly change instruments even mid-set. I'm at a loss to understand why this would ever be the subject of debate or any controversy. Unless borne of sour grapes. Please prove me wrong.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by Nick Splease
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Aw come on now, I'm getting a lot of mileage out of that PC joke. It's almost milked out, that cow is almost dry, just gimme a few more times and it'll be old.
Back to topic, you're right KML, how is this an issue...unless you're switching to instruments you can't play, that's the only issue I could see.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Make sure and bring a guitar, a banjo, two bouzoukis (one 4 course and one 5 course), a couple of whistles, definitely a bodhran and any new instruments you might be picking up along the way. That way you can showcase your vast musical abilities for everyone to appreciate!
Seriously, I don't see the problem in switching instruments. As llig and SWFL fiddler say, so long as there's room and you're really playing the things well, it would probably add to the music more than detract from it. If it's more of a nuisance, I can't imagine it would go over too well.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by MartySmith
Re: Switching instruments during a session
ONE BODHRAN {IF I'VE SPELT THAT CORRECTLY] SOUNDS THE SAME AS ANY OTHER TO ME. BANG BANG BANG BANG.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by Dexy
Re: Switching instruments during a session
*groan*
I should have known better than to say anything about the bodhran. Here we go again. Bodrah bliss, time to step in and set the record straight.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by MartySmith
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Woops, of course, I meant "bodhran bliss" and not "bodrah bliss".
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by MartySmith
Re: Switching instruments during a session
(All purpose Session joke)
Q. How do you shaky egg a bodhran with a bad guitar player?
A. Banjo the spoons!
(That's all of them, right?)
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Switching instruments during a session
You forgot to piano the accordion with the bones there, SWFL...
Pete
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by Reverend
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Ben, so you wish you could play the buggers? I don't think I've come across that one. It's not mentioned in Grove's dictionary of music, but it sounds like it's some sort of ethnic bagpipe thingie, possibly from Eastern Europe - Bulgaria, maybe?
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by lazyhound
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Shame on me, thanks Pete. Sorry all you PA and bones players.
Even worse, I forgot the best punch line ever:
"Well, you have a recording, so what do you need the dots for?"
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Actually, you're right, Trevor. I just looked and, to my amazement, indeed it doesn't appear in Grove's. So, for the curious, here are some details of this fascinating instrument:
As you surmised, Trevor, the buggers did indeed originate in Bulgaria, around 930 AD (or CE as the PC would have it). They were the invention of the Bogomils, a Gnostic dualistic sect which spread from Bulgaria to most of Middle Eurpoe, where it remained popular until around the late 14th century.
The instrument was a mouth-blown form of bagpipes, and required notoriously huge amounts of breath, also requiring the player the maintain tremendous *pressure*. This led to several unfortunate effects.
Firstly, it was common for players to become extremely tired after only a short period of playing, often exclaiming, whilst leaning back suddenly in a heap on their benches "Jesus, I'm buggered". (Remember, they were a religious sect.)
Secondly, because of the huge back-pressure of air produced in playing the instrment, there was a tendency for players to exhibit an unusually high degree of flatulence. Some have argued that this is what later led to the unfortunate reputation attributed to the Bogomils in some quarters in a doubly unkind (and, to our modern way of thinking, dreadfully un-PC) jibe apparently invented by the mainstream church. This jibe was frequently hurled in the direction of young Bogomils, and has been suggested as a possible origin of the phrase "We'll get the little buggers".
Playing the buggers was so tiring that players frequently became quite hungry, leading eventually to such useages as "I'm a bugger for cream cakes".
And, again because of the enormous back-pressure produced when playing the instrument, as well as flatulence, worse results sometimes ensued, and players would sometimes leave in a precipitous haste in the direction of the nearest convenience. They were said to have "buggered off".
I hope you find the above notes useful. You will find a fuller explanation at the very helpful fansite for the instrument:
www.wellbuggermerigid.com
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Ah, yes. That would explain the existence of a smaller version of the instrument known as the "silly buggers". Being easier to play, it would appear to be relatively common.
Of course, the largest version of the instrument would presumably be known as the "useless buggers", because it was impossible to play.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by lazyhound
Re: Switching instruments during a session
There was even, I believe, a sort of wraparound variety, with a great many pipes and two bags - the "hugger buggers".
And they used to hold sort of Medieval, knockout, talent contests to see who could become the most popular player. The most famous series of these contests was called "The Buggeration Factor".
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Switching instruments during a session
But seriously though, Trevor, I think you must be pshychic or something. I was just playing my modern version of silly buggers as you posted ...
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Switching instruments during a session
And when quiet tunes were accompanied in confined spaces, the vertically-held buggers tended to be a lot louder thanks to freeing the constricted wind supply which you got when played in the regular position. Because the loud sound only happened with the buggers in the vertical position, the effect was known as "buggering up" the tune.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: Switching instruments during a session
The great difficulty in playing the instrument led some to believe that playing the instrument - in *any* form - was, in fact, impossible. This led to the penning of that great medieval song:
"I would fain do aye for love
I'd travel to the nether regions and thence return
Yea, I would fain do aye for love
I would aye forswear falseness, though I burn
And I will aye remember your ethereal touch
I would fain do aye for love ...
... but I'll be buggered if I'm doing that."
Of course, the words have developed somewhat over the intervening years.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Switching instruments during a session
"Medieval knockout talent contests"
Is that the one in which musicians from opposing teams gallop towards each other with their instruments extended?
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by oldstrings
Re: Switching instruments during a session
And you can put *that* away for a start, oldstrings. You'll have someone's eye out!
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Switching instruments during a session
... then there were he "bugger-thugs", guys who would go around sabotaging or stealing the things. Not to be confused with "thug-buggers", who did certain things to thugs of the day not entirely appropriate to describe here. Then you had the "bugger-thug-buggers".
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by MartySmith
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Hmmm ... never heard of that. I hope you're not taking the p*ss, Marty? This is a very serious and antique tradition we're talking about here.
I hope everyone can treat it with the seriousness and respect it deserves.
If I find that someone isn't, I'll arrange for them to be arrested by the Bogomils, and that's one way you *don't* want to be arrested. Paul Gascoigne was grabbed by the Bogomils once, and the memory of it haunts him to this day.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Switching instruments during a session
What's wrong with switching instruments or bringing a shopping bag full of whistles? You guys are really cranky.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by sbhikes
Re: Switching instruments during a session
You need to adopt an ear for music Dexy. It can take time.
and Marty smith was not far off describing me. On a Sunday I bring one bodhran (they all sound the same?) one guitar, one mandolin, one whistle, SEVEN blues harps, one "lump of wood", and a bag full of stuff from "joint grease" (sic), long nosed pliers, kazoo, egg, batteries (not for the egg) and a long screwdriver (do not ask).
"Show me the road to Sandy Bell's" la, lah, la, lah.
# Posted on October 9th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Switching instruments during a session
According to Reuters, Nissan is developing a car that does away with the need to be able to drive in reverse:
"The leading Japanese carmaker recently unveiled the Pivo 2, a battery-powered concept car with a fully rotating cabin that makes going backwards obsolete, since the driver can turn to face the direction they need to go.
Its wheels also turn 90 degrees, making parking easier.
"With this easy-to-handle car, you can feel comfortable while driving," said Masahiko Tabe, senior manager of the advanced vehicle development group at Nissan Motors.
"You can go everywhere without worrying about your driving skills."
What a great idea--put more unskilled drivers on the road. What will they think of next...self-tipping bodhrans and player accordions? Just imagine each of us carrying a whole session-load of self steering instruments into the pubs. The session table will need to be a lazy susan.
# Posted on October 9th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Switching instruments during a session
Buggers are played at a high level as well... A former prime minister of Australia was said to have told a Japanese prime minister during negotiations, "I think you are playing funny buggers..." Apparently this caused consternation amongst the interpreters on the Japanese side. Eventually an interpreter whispered in the Japanese PM's ear, leading to dark looks and much sharp intake of breath from the PM.
Hawkie asked what had been said and was told the remark was translated as, "I think you are playing the amusing homosexual..."
# Posted on October 9th 2007 by cag
Re: Switching instruments during a session
What a shawm!
# Posted on December 3rd 2007 by ceolachan