Bodhrán
CD Rom Workshop - Pete Ryan
 One
CD ROM in a plastic sleeve, no jewel case - no accompanying written material
Purchased
from from Mally.com
£16.99 (€25 / $30 approx)
Published
2002
ISBN: Music Workshop : Ref: FB901 :
This review
assumes that players are right-handed - left handed players should reverse
any references.
Funky
Seagull Says... "While we are proud of our use of the latest technology
we still feel that it's the skill of our instructors that sets us apart
from other music workshops. Our instructors talk to you not at you. Each
title is taught as if you were picking a few tunes on the front porch. After
all, that's how American folk music has been passed on for generations."
The
Package
A
single CD ROM in a windowed paper sleeve inside a poorly photocopied folded
liner (above). This was inside a plastic pocket, stapled at the top. The
CD ROM is on-body printed. The package feels cheap.
Lesson
Delivery Method
The
autorun file opens a basic HTML page. clicking on the text link will open
realplayer. This is a collection of 7 Real video files which can be opened
from a menu in the player.
Using
the workshop.
The
workshop is delivered by Pete Ryan from London. His style is very relaxed
and chatty but too casual and unfocused in my opinion. The workshops are
delivered to camera and are a mixture of explanation, demonstration, anecdotes,
side roads and iteration. The workshop is very 'relaxed' in its delivery
Pete
is clearly a competent player and explains himself well but there is little
apparent preparation or structure to the presentation past the identification
of major road markings. The bits between the road markings seem a little
haphazard and there are a number of awkward pauses which could have been
edited out. The conversational style means that to work on a specific area
of ones playing, one needs to re-hear all the stories and anecdotes again
and again or use the forward button. This I feel is counter productive to
an instructional medium but it is common to all video and audio based tutors
I have encountered..
The
interview with Pete is interesting, a nice bloke who enjoys what he does.
Pete talks about his own take on Irish music the bodhrán and myriad other
things. At 50 minutes, I found it a long interview and I'm afraid that I
didn't make it to the end.
The
play-along section is a relaxed collection of jigs then reels and hornpipes
where Pete is accompanied by a banjo player. As a special 'treat' Funky
seagull added some old tyme music featuring that neo-ancient Irish instrument,
the Bouzouki :) and other banjo/guitar type instruments. There were a couple
of minutes discussion at the start over what tune they might play, a few
in-jokes and when they did finally get going, Whiskey in the Jar brought
a tear to my eye, it is a treat.
User
Friendliness
I
have to say that this was not a user-focused workshop for me. The style
of delivery does not work for me because of the ratio of relevant informative
content to that of 'other'. Some consideration of the structure of the workshop
and more focus in the text would have made this much more usable to a learner.
I
am not pre-disposed to Realplayer so I was disappointed that this was the
only format available.
What
do I think?
Well
I have to say that for me, this falls short of the mark of a useful workshop,
fun yes but of limited teaching potential. It's proper title could be "an
afternoon's craic with ....".
I
did enjoy elements, but it's amateur, ill prepared, unedited, poorly presented
on screen and mega-cheaply packaged. It feels like some one met someone
in a pub and they said, 'lets make a video'. I have not seen any of Funky
Seagull's other CD ROMS so I can't say if this homemade look is a feature.
In
my opinion, it's not worth anywhere near the price asked in terms of content,
substance or effort. I'd avoid it.
Am
I Glad I bought it?
No,
I wasted my money
Would
I recommend it?
No,
not at all
Paul
Marshall - January 2004
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