Hi

I was wondering if anyone has experimented using fingerstyles (such as Glen Velez style) on an O'Kane drum and whether the skin survives ok and it sounds ok. I know this works fine on the normal cheap end drum but I was wondering if it applies to the more expensive end drums too.

Thanks

- Daryush

Hey Daryush,

Sure it will work, you have two difficulties however and I have one area of concern

1. The tape will take away all those lovely edgetones and overtones that make a finger frame drum so awesome

2. The Tuning ring moves the bearing edge, the boundary of the vibrating membrane, away from the edge of the frame of the drum so finger snaps and snap-rolls become really ineffective - you could probably get away with it moreso on the New O'Kane or an Older Bartlett instrument which have bearing edges within the rims but it wouldn't be as effective say on a Hedwitschak with an inch of timber to stretch between the edge of the skin and the outside of the shell


my concern... I'm unsure about how much tension you are intending to put on the drum - I'd avoid going to finger-drum tensions, the skin is plenty strong, but the weak point is where it is tacked on and it may rip off the tacks. If the maker has glued and tacked then you should be fine

A cheapo bodhran drum is best suited to this style of finger playing, usually this means non-tunable however I do know of at least one bodhran maker who is actively prototyping tunable finger drum designs.

I think also that the introduction of the 'neo bodhran' has really confused issues. I wish a different name had have been adopted when it was realised by Glen or Patrick (snr) that it was a different drum entirely after being re-skinned to be taught. They have diverged even more now now since crossbars are not present on most decent quality instruments.

I instinctively play finger style (as opposed to hand style)on every drum, it just doesn't light my fire on the Irish bod-horn but can be useful for effect in recordings and the like.

HTH

P

Ah cool, thanks very much for the advice.

I was mainly worried about the tape on the outside affecting it but thanks for raising up the other issues too.

I know Glenluce do some tunable models - there's a shop here in Nottingham that sells a 16 inch deep tunable bodhran made by Glenluce - it has quite a thick skin and no tape. The 18" drums are really too big for me for this style though :(

How is hand style different to finger style?

Thanks very much

- Daryush

Hi Daryush, happy to help, that's why the site's here.

Ideally you would want a thin skin for finger drumming, it's much more articulate, better overtone structure and has a more satisfying bass note. If the cheap eastern bodhrans had a decent edge they'd be perfect, tight dry skins are what you will want, I can't get my fixed skins tight enough here in Ireland.

Finger style uses the fingers to strike the drum like 10 drumsticks, hand style uses the whole hand or the back of the fingers to strike the drum in one stroke. There's an area called Coleman County that is reknowned for its hand strikers - Speaking of which.

There's an awesome week-long event coming up shortly - the Coleman Country bodhran school - This is Junior's Davey's home turf and he's a great line up of Teachers - prepare yourselves for Svend Kjeldsen, he's an education! Sean O'Neill & Colm Phelan are amazing young players and All Ireland Champions so top drawer stuff altogether.

I'm not sure there's any hand striking on bodojo.tv - I think I saw it in one of the 70's session videos. Seanie McGrath seemed to know a bit about this kind of more traditional approach, perhaps he'll chime in here. Tommy Hayes does a bit also in his Bodhran bones and spoons video

I've only ever encountered it at the hands of Simon O'Dwyer and it's hard to make any judgement because Simon is a one-man multisensory experience.


I found it unsatisfying to play but I haven't really worked it out at all. It did wear the skin off my knuckles though :)

P