The bodhrán is a member of the membranophone family of instruments, this simply means that it is categorised by the fact that it uses a vibrating membrane (skin) to create vibration in the air which we interperet as sound. This vibration follows a standard pattern for such instrument types and this means that it can be analysed as a mechanical process and adjusted with confidence in the result.

Tuning The Bodhran

 
'In tune'

Tuning a drum differs from tuning other instruments insofar as you have three elements to consider; viz mechanics, overall tonality and pitch.

• Mechanics refers to the creation of conditions of efficient desired vibration
• Overall tonality in this instance refers to the quality of the sound and is the result of a mechanical process,
• Pitch refers to the note and octave of the tone produced and is the result of subjective choice.

Mechanics A drum is 'in tune' when the tensions across the head are even. This is known as being in tune with itself. When this occurs, the drum will emit a pure tone with a single dominant frequency. A drum may be in tune at any pitch within its tension range, it simply requires that the tensions are even across the head. Read here about the process of doing this on a tunable drum.

The overall tonality of a drum will depend on what the player desires and on the playing requirements required by the music. A high tensioned drum may sound thin and sharp, a low tensioned drum will sound fat and boomy. Your desired sound will be somewhere within that range. This is where you will be looking to place emphasis for a fixed skin (non-tunable) drum

This overall tonality can be affected by the design of the entire drum (not just the head) and we will increasingly find that bodhrán innovators are looking toward shell and air resonance as contributors to the sound, some at the cutting edge are even looking at secondary resonant heads

Pitch: The pitching of a drum is a subject of many debates. Some players tune to specific notes in order that they may compliment other melodic instruments or that they may work with other bodhrán players who have sympathetic tunings. It is common for us in Different Drums to tune bodhráns to intervals of 3rds or fifths for recording. Normally for live work we just tune them so that the fundamental tones are sufficiently apart to be discriminated from each other.

Unless you have a specific requirement to match a particular note I would advise you not to spend too much time on being note specific. The note will change...

• as the drum warms up and stabilises
• when you place your hand on it
• with the pressures you use when playing

A note on 'playing in' a drum

All bodhráns require their skin to be 'played in' more.... A new bodhrán skin almost always will be too hard, a hard skin sounds 'scratchy' and thin in tone. The skin will loosen and soften over time because the impact of the stick on a tensioned drum will break up the fibrous structure that binds it tightly together. With a traditional heavy-skinned bodhrán this process may take years. With a thin or Lambeg-skinned instrument the process is shorter because there is so much less fibrous material to contend with, In both cases there may be natural or chemical treatments applied to assist with softening the skin.

A way of a player themself speeding up this process of softening up the skin is the application of some form of treatment such as lanolin or lexol, saddle soap, dubbin, oils etc; many products have been tried with varying degrees of success. Any application of this nature should be applied to the playing surface only.

You should consult someone who has previously used whatever product you are considering for skin treatment. Drumdojo takes no responsibility for your experimentation.

Tuning types

bodhráns come in two main types as far as tuning is concerned. All instruments are tunable insofar that the pitch and tension may be adjusted, however it is the methods employed and the provision of tuning-specific mechanisms that provide the dividing line for definition.
 

• A 'non tunable' instrument will have a skin stretched over a frame in a fixed manner. There is no mechanical method of adjustment. Tuning a non-tunable page

  • This tuning method involves using moisture to loosen an over-tight drum and using heat to evaporate moisture on a too-loose drum. It lacks subtlety but is effective.
  • A plastic non-tunable head is non-tunable
  • A plastic non-tunable head will eventuality drop in tone and become unplayable
  • There are many theories about restoring these heads, I'm as yet unconvinced

• A 'tunable' instrument will have some form of integral mechanical device which can be used to adjust the tension on the skin. Tuning a tunable page

  • This tuning method involves adjusting the tension on the skin at a number of points around its circumference.
  • It permits a drum to be adjusted for use in different environments
  • It offers great accuracy and control
  • Provides melodic potential
  • It is the obvious choice of professional players

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bodhrán - Tuning a Non-tunable Drum

PaulMarshall ©2004

This page refers to adjusting drums with natural animal hide heads. Fixed plastic heads are non-tunable

A drum is 'in tune' when the tensions across the head are even. This is known as being in tune with itself and bears no direct relation to the pitch (high or low) of the drum. A drum may be in tune with itself at a high pitch or at a low pitch. The pitching of a bodhrán is generally a player's own subjective choice and you may choose to tune to a specific note to work with other instruments or just to a pleasant tone.

A 'non tunable' instrument will have a skin stretched over a frame in a fixed manner. There is no mechanical method of adjustment. This is standard on older and cheap or tourist quality instruments, it is relatively rare on a contemporary professional quality instrument. Fixed tuning is also seen in the form of a mylar (plastic) head on the bodhráns produced for a Middle Eastern Style of play.

• This tuning method involves using moisture to loosen an over-tight drum or using heat to evaporate moisture on a too-loose drum. It lacks subtlety but is effective.
• A plastic non-tunable head is non-tunable
• A plastic non-tunable head will eventuality drop in tone and become unplayable
• There are many theories about restoring these heads, I remain unconvinced

Tuning a non-tunable bodhrán

This sounds like an oxymoron, how can you tune something that is non-tunable? well, the answer is to learn to work with the natural qualities of the skin, adjustment is based primarily on heat and moisture.

There is little control available for fine adjustment of the tension on the drum and you will be looking for a general overall pleasant tonality. If you have specific tuning needs or requirements then I suggest that a non-tunable drum may not be for you.

Plastic-headed drums

In the case of drums with heads made of mylar (plastic), the name 'non-tunable' is completely appropriate. These heads do not react to ambient level heat or any moisture. The application of heat (sometimes even direct very hot sunlight) will not tighten the head but will soften and deform it - be warned. They are non tunable and you need a new drum.

Too Tight

Commonly a bodhrán will be found to be too tight, this is not just an 'exported' problem, here in Ireland we have that same problem too but not to the same extent as dry parts of the world where the issues are worse.

The only way to lower the pitch and reduce tension is to apply moisture to the skin in order that it softens and becomes more flexible. The moisture should be applied to the skin on the inside of the drum only.

Water only should be used - DO NOT USE BEER it will ruin your skin.

Moisture takes only a few minutes to have an effect and therefore should be applied sparingly if you intend to play the instrument in the immediate future. It is very easy to over-apply water which will leave you with a soggy skin and an unplayable drum (see too loose below) so do it in stages.

There are a number of recommended ways of applying water.

• Using a plant mister is the preferred method. Spray the entire inside of the drum with a light misting of water and use your hand to spread it around. It may take several applications to bring it down to achieve the desired tone depending on the original degree of tightness. You will find that the drum will tighten up with playing because of heat and friction and re-application should be carried out as necessary
• Using a cloth. Simply take a damp cloth (but not soaking) and rub it around the inside of the drum. The skin will absorb the water from a cloth as soon as they come in contact so rub lightly, quickly and cover as much of the drum's surface as you can in one go. It may take several dampenings of the cloth to achieve this but leave a couple of minutes between each application to give the drum a chance to settle at its new state. Re-application will be needed to counter the friction & heat from the hand during playing.
• Pour it in, slosh it about. This is not a recommended way of de-tuning the drum for a number of reasons. The water will tend to gather at the edges where the skin touches the shell giving uneven tensions. The wood may absorb the water and become swollen or misshapen. It is very easy to over-do it and you may end up with a floppy dead skin requiring remedial action (see below). You will have difficulties at a seishun in finding somewhere apart from the floor for pouring the excess water out into.
• DIY Humidifiers. A contributor to one of the bodhrán discussion fora whose name I forget, sorry, suggested that where a drum is always tight, it is worth carrying a humidifier to keep the air moist inside its case. His excellent suggestion was to use a film canister with a hole in top and bottom. Place something in the botton of the canister to provide a buffer, a washer was suggested and then drop in some damp sponge. The moisture in the sponge will be drawn into the air.

Clearly the bodhrán skin is a very sensitive item and you will find that a non-tunable bodhrán will require fairly constant attention. A skin that has been well played in will be less susceptible to ambient heat moisture and changes but will still suffer the same effects.

Too loose

This is a common problem with bodhráns that have old skins, that have been stored in a damp atmosphere or that are being exposed to moisture laden air. Just as the process of loosening a skin uses the application of moisture, the opposite holds true for tightening the skin, it's all about taking the moisture out. The process is evaporation by heat and is generally slower than the process of de-tuning a tight drum

Hand heat

The act of playing the bodhrán means that the left hand is almost always in contact with the skin. Given that the hand is at body temperature, the skin will absorb heat from the hand until they equalise. Furthermore the motion of the hand over the inside of the skin will cause friction which will generate even more heat. Both of these activities will remove moisture from the drum to affect the tension and pitch. In many cases this is the only action that is required for a non-tunable drum. If this is insufficient then you have to look at applying heat from another source.

Applying heat

There are many ways of applying heat to the drum, any heat source that does not produce moisture will do and many inventive ways exist. The important thing to remember is that you want to heat the air around the drum rather than the skin itself (which will be heated by the air). Do not ever place your drum head directly against any heat source (e.g. radiator or blow heater) particularly when very damp, as you will destroy it.

When using any heat source, it is important to remember that you are dealing with natural skin. It will burn just as easily as your own skin but will not regenerate. The safest way of ensuring that you do not burn the skin is to keep your own hand between the drumskin and the heat source. If it's too hot for you, it's too hot for the drum.

When heating the skin, you can speed the process up slightly by heating both sides, turning the drum every couple of minutes. Heating the inside of the drum will create a chamber of warm air if the drum is held above the heat source.

The raise in pitch/tension will be slow initially but will speed up as the moisture reduces. Check the drum often once the process has started.

De-humidifiers.

If you find that your drum is continually too low in pitch you may wish to add a few sachets of silica gel to your instrument case, this will absorb moisture in the air.

As you can see the tuning of a non-tunable drum is basically a balance between heat and moisture. The drum will always seek to equalise with the dominant ambient force, if you are playing in a desert then the drum will always want to become tighter and will need more constant work, if you are playing on a damp cold day then the drum will want to become floppy. There is a certain amount that can be done if the builder knows where the drum is to be played however that makes the instrument ambience-specific.

The worst possible combination of scenarios are humid, hot and moist, atmospheres, humidity kills bodhráns and you will find it very difficult to keep sufficient tension on the drum.

Not quite so bad are air conditioned atmospheres but they will remove moisture and you will be constantly misting to bring the pitch down.

Whatever your atmosphere, the adjustment of your drum is a continual necessity and you should become familiar with its reaction to where it is and reaction to your interaction with it. When you have this familiarity, you will know how to prepare and treat your drum so that you and those with whom you play are able to get the most enjoyment from it.

I hope that this has been useful

Paul

Read about tuning a tunable bodhrán

Return to main bodhrán page

bodhrán - Tuning a tunable drum

PaulMarshall ©2004

A 'tunable' instrument will have some form of integral mechanical device which can be used to adjust the tension on the skin. There are a number of methods available from different drum makers however the principles at work remain the same.

Most drums use an internal tuning ring, adjusted by advancing or retarding a bolt (shown) this is the most common form of tuning mechanism. This pushes an internal ring up against the skin. The harder it is pushed, the more tension is placed on the skin and the higher the tone, there are versions with tuning rings built into the shell and another where the shell is split into two parts. Other forms include external hardware where the skin is pulled downwards.

The net effect of all tuning methods is to move either the shell or the skin in relation to the other and thereby to control the tension on the head.

To tune a drum head from scratch.

Take one bodhrán....

Seat the head

When there is no tension in the drum you need to ensure that the skin is centred and not stuck on the edge where it crosses the shell. To seat it, I simply pless my palm in the centre of the drum and at all the tuning points. This ensures that all sits loosely.

Mechanical Basecamp

The mechanical basecamp is a wee name I give to the positioning of the hardware prior to adjustment. In the case of the bodhrán this only requires youto hand tighten the screws so that they are just touching the tuning ring but are not yet applying pressure.

Order of tension.

To place tension evenly on the drum you need to be orderly in the amounts of tension applied and where it is applied. The majority of good quality tunable bodhráns will have 6 or 8 tuning lugs. In this case you will find it useful to consider them in terms of pairs that sit opposite each other. Occasionally bodhráns will be made with 5 tuning lugs, these are star tuning systems and pairs don't apply. Lugs should be numbered 1 - 5 (anti)clockwise around the drum

With pairs you will need to identify one pair as pair one, it is immaterial which you select but you will need to remember it for the tuning session. If you position pair one as being at 12 O'clock and 6 O'clock then you will have other pairs spaced evenly to the right and left.

• In a 6 lug drum you will have a pair (Pair 2) at 2 & 8 O'clock and another (pair 3) at 4 & 10 O'clock.
• In an 8 lug drum you will have a pair at 3 & 9 O'clock (Pair 2) , 1.30 & 7.30 (Pair 3) and 4.30 & 10.30 (Pair 4)

The 8 lug drum would be tensioned in the following order 12, 6 then 3, 9 then 1.30, 7.30 then 4.30, 10 30, variations are possible of course - Repeat as necessary

The 6 lug drum would be tensioned 12, 6, 2, 8, 4, 10 or a variation thereof - Repeat

A 5 Star system drum will be tensioned in the following order 1, 4, 2, 5 ,3.

The idea behind the tuning is to work around the drum adding tension bit by bit as evenly as possible so that you finish up with each lug applying identical tension.

Applying tension

Starting with Pair 1, grip the 12 O'clock lug loosely and hand tighten until it resists and your fingers slip, do the same on the 6 O'clock lug with the same amount of grip, follow the pattern above for your number of tuning points. When you have done this, check if you have a note. If not then repeat with a little more grip tension. If the lugs are stiff then you may use whatever tuning tool is appropriate but move in terms of 1/16 or 1/8 turns and ensure that you are consistent as you move through the pattern

Once you have a note, you need to check that it is the same at each tuning point. To do this tap about an inch into the skin directly above the lug. Compare this with its neighbours and those opposite. Hum each note that is produced and compare to see if there are any differences. You will need to adjust the lower pitched lugs to match the higher pitched one.

If there is a significant difference then I suggest you re-tune from scratch again rather than waste ages balancing an already unbalanced drum head.

When you are tuning up the lower pitched lugs you will also be raising the overall tension of the drum so the lug with the note that you are trying to achieve will also be going up but by a smaller amount. Because of this it may take a number of progressively finer adjustments to achieve a single note.

The tension placed on a drum goes on in a fan-like manner, if you can imagine tugging on an edge of a flattened bedsheet you can imagine the tension pattern. The greatest tension effect is diagonally across the drum and this is what gives it the paired tone quality. You may have to fractionally adjust other lugs to compensate.

Tips:

• A tone is mirrored at the opposite lug of any diagonal pair.
• Adjustments should be split 50/50 between paired lugs as far as possible
• You should always adjust tuning by raising tension not lowering it. Lowering tension relies on the skin retreating smoothly back over the bearing edge which is not guaranteed. If you do need to lower tension, you must back the lug off substantially and then tune up to the desired pitch (not recommended as it unsettles the overall tuning)

When you have ensured that there is a single note at all the lugs then you will have successfully tuned the drum to its lowest tuning point. This is tuning basecamp, from here you need to choose the overall tonality of your drum based on the sound you wish to achieve and then to fine tune to that point.

Overall tonality & pitch

To raise the pitch of the drum from here, you only need to evenly apply increasing amounts of pressure to the head. At this stage, 1/4 turn of each lug is a huge amount so I'd recommend working in 8ths or 16ths. As you finish each round of the pattern, check the accuracy of the tuning at each lug and adjust as appropriate. Continue this process until you find the tuning region of the drum that you are looking for or that you find pleasing.

Fine tuning

Ok so this is the nitty gritty. I assume that you have achieved a successful overall sound, the same tone at each lug and a pitch that's good for you. if you want your drum to deliver a full pure tone, you need to extend the above process to micro levels. Here's how you do it.

As you tap the drum skin at each lug you will hear one main tone but you will also hear smaller tones that form a component part of that main tone. you may also note that there is a wavy, phasing kind of sound usually higher in pitch. These sounds are known as a beat frequencies. As you tap at each lug you will notice that these beat frequencies can vary quite widely and again the pairs effect will apply These harmonic overtones and the beat frequencies they provide are your friends.

Tip:

• Listen closely to the sound of your drum, can you hear that the overall sound is made up of several sounds?
• Ensure that what you are listening to & adjusting is the correct thing, it is normally fairly obvious but it can be deceptive and may take a few tuning sessions to develop the ear to be able to pinpoint overtones accurately.

Work your way around the drum and identify the pair with the fastest vibrating beat frequencies. Adjust one of the lugs by a tiny amount and listen to what happens to the beat. Does it speed up or slow down? if it speeds up then you're going the wrong way, if it slows down then you are moving in the right direction. Adjust that lug and it's opposite partner so that you get it to its slowest beat. (it's ok to tune down using these small adjustments). Check again that the overall tonality of the drum is where you want it.

Go around the drum again identify the next fastest beats and adjust those accordingly. Work your way around the drum as many times as it takes each time adjusting until you get the beat frequencies to their slowest. Your aim is to achieve zero beat frequencies so that these overtones become a single pure tone. I often find that there is one final lug adjustment that just causes the whole drum to drop into tune, it can be quite amazing.

When you have achieved this then your drum is perfectly in tune with itself, a perfectly efficient tuned instrument.

Help! I can't get the beats to stop

There may be instruments where no matter what you do you don't seem to be able to get the beat freqs to stop. There are a number of potential reasons for this

• The bearing edge (where the skin leaves the drum) is damaged
• The drum isn't round
• The drumshell is twisted (torsion)
• The skin is uneven in its thickness
• One of the pairs or lugs is drastically out of tune but is being masked by others taking the tension
• The drum is unbalanced
• You haven't been working with the correct sounds

Yes I know I'm a nerd

Ok so not everyone is going to go to this trouble every time they play their drum, I don't! although I do ensure that I have the gross tuning to a consistent note. The value in doing this is that now you know how your drum works and how the adjustments affect the sound. The act of undertaking micro tuning is an intimate act and can only improve your relationship with your drum and your understanding of what's going on. That's never a bad thing, is it?

I hope that this is useful, I'm happy to respond to comments.

Paul

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Tuning a non-tunable dru

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