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Jammer Group: Members Posts: 641 Joined: April 2000 Posted: July 31 2000, 18:54 I'm always told that there are African bits in Ommadawn but all I can spot are Irish bits and nothing else Can someone tell me where the African bits are? Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Aug. 01 2000, 16:05 There's nothing that can be strictly considered "African music" on Ommadawn. Just some heavy drumming over the Ommadawn Egg Kwol chant and at the end of part 1. These are referred on the cover as "African Drums".... -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

Jammer Group: Members Posts: 641 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Aug. 01 2000, 19:11 One of the things that Mike's celtic music has influenced me to do is to get a bodhran. So far I am coming on well with it as I am also learning percussion at my school All I can hear in this bit is some clever bodhran playing, more cleverer than anything else heard on other pieces. I have a crap version of Ommadawn which doesn't tell you anything about the instruments or who plays them But if I were to try and work out what I think just one bodhran is doing in this section it would be like this KEY: \ - downstroke / - upstroke - - skip beat C - closed O - open R - play on the rim (I can't do this!) |4| | | | | |-| O/|C\-\/RR\O/|C\/\/RR\/|C\-\/RR\O/| |4| | | | | (play the three small r's | | double the speed of the beat |C\/\/rrr\/| | | [the last bar seems to only happen randomly or when the bodhran player felt like playing it. Sometimes it just cycles from the first full bar to the second bar] I hope you understand that. Think of the beats as quavers. Don't count the markings for open and closed playing and you will have 8 quaver beats in a 4/4 bar I may not be able to play a guitar, but when it comes to working out bodhran rhythms I'm your man P.S. Do you think this would qualify for a tab in the Amarok tabbing society? Back to top

Jammer Group: Members Posts: 641 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Aug. 01 2000, 19:25 whoops! I tried to put in bar lines to make it easier, but they didn't come out correctly. When you see a '|' that's a bar line I also forgot to put in accents. Very important to get a different sounds in a reel (a reel is a bodhran rhythm in simple time, whereas a rhythm in 6/8 or other compound times would be called a jig) They would be: 4 -x|x------x|x------x|x------x|x------x| 4 quite simple really with the accents. No accents are needed (or would be even possible to play) on rim playing and quite interestingly when Mike is playing jig rhythms on a bodhran (eg. 'happy?' section of AMAROK, most of Liberation) he always plays a rimshot on the fourth beat like this: \/\R\/ x although the common way to play it written in the book I'm learning from is this: \/\/\/ x x playing an accent on an upstroke involves lots of practice and this may be something that Mike had trouble with. Sorry to bore some of you who don't know what I'm talking about, but I'd be very intersted if anybody on this board plays the bodhran and I know it's really spelt bodhrán, but I couldn't be bothered to open up charactermap all the time Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: Aug. 05 2000, 22:50 The african drums were played by african drumming group Jabula. The bodhrán was played by Mike. The african drums start at about 12:28. I have heard similar sounds from bodhráns, but these big, thuddy sounding drums are almost certainly large african (probably goatskin covered) drums. I believe the clicky sound is as well. Listen to how all the different elements of the rhythm are placed in different parts of the stereo image. Sometimes two different drum sounds fall on the same beat as well. It may be possible to do on a single bodhrán, though (at least play something very similar), which could prove to be an interesting interpretation of the part... I've looked at bodhráns in music shops and thought they'd be interesting to try, but haven't yet got one. I do have a pair of small African goatskin drums, though, although not of quite the same type that Jabula would play... Back to top

Jammer Group: Members Posts: 641 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Aug. 06 2000, 19:12 I've played African drums as well. To get a loud sound with more impact you'd use one of those mallets that primary schools have for playing on those plastic resonators with a single small virbraphone note (do you know what I'm talking about or were they after your time?). Use the stick rather than the rubbery bit at the end. But I still don't know how they were able to play semiquavers with this technique I thought it was done on bodhrans because when I heard the 'mind' cover of it, the bit at the end didn't sound right. It was probably because Ommadawn relies on mixing levels a lot more so the studio version would sound very different to a live performance even if there were all the instruments necessary Back to top

GMOVJ Group: Members Posts: 273 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: Aug. 08 2000, 06:09 Gosh !!!! 2dg, thanks, this is great : i'm trying to learn bodhran by my own (and i'm //in great difficulties, over//, this is one of the most frustrating instrument I own !), your informations are simply great ! Cheers, GMOVJ -------------- Cheers, GMOVJ [URL=http://tubular.fodplanet.com]http://tubular.fodplanet.com[/URL] - The french speaking mailing list Back to top

Jammer Group: Members Posts: 641 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Aug. 08 2000, 19:18 Thanks. This is going a bit off-topic, but on the subject of the bodhran and tabs here's the 'diana' bit from Inc. \/\/\/\/\-/-\-\/ x x x x the beats here are semiquavers so that's one bars worth I see what you mean, K-S. A bodhran sounds the same as an African drum so you can use a bodhran in African music. I noticed an 'open' sound used in the chant section of Ommadawn so I thought this was done on a bodhran. I think the ending bit is done on African drums as you could never play the bodhran for that long (or at least I don't think you can) Back to top

Jammer Group: Members Posts: 641 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Aug. 08 2000, 19:20 (the accents were wrong again) %-( Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: Aug. 09 2000, 18:38 I hear the semiquavers being played mostly on the higher pitched clicky sounding drum. With 4 drummers in mind, I have a feeling the pattern might be something like this (but to be honest, I'm sure this is somewhere very close to wrong) 1 X X X X Thuddy drum 2 xx X x Middle pitched drum 3 X xxX Low pitched drum 4 Xxx Xx xxxxxxxx Clicky sounding drum As you can see, it's a bit vague (that includes the drum namings ). The X was meant to be a crotchet, the x ended up being everything else. When they're just in pairs I guess I mean they're just quavers...it all slipped out of my mind a bit as I was writing them down. The drum at the top is just playing out one hit every beat, so maybe that'll give you some idea. I think some of the parts I've put onto one drum here are almost certainly played on two (having slightly different pitches), so it's all a bit confused... Back to top

Jammer Group: Members Posts: 641 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Aug. 11 2000, 19:47 Thanks Ks! I think I see what you mean this is what I have come up with, using the same drum sounds x---x---x---x--- thuddy sounding drum -xxx--o--o-x---- mid sounding drum x---x---x-x-x-xx low sounding drum --------xxxxxxxx clicky sounding drum The o's on the mid sounding drum are much more resonant so they sound more like a frame drum or a congo drum played on the side The thuddy sounding drum to me sounds like a cross between an African drum and the sound you get when you hit a table which has dinner-plates stacked up and they rattle (!), but there is more of the African drum sound than the other sound. Back to top

GMOVJ Group: Members Posts: 273 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: May 28 2001, 10:30 Yeah ! I can play it... ... well I almost can play it Well, does someone has got some other bodhran pattern in mind ? I would love to have some... Is there a bodhran tabbing section somewhere in here ? Cheers to all, GMOVJ -------------- Cheers, GMOVJ [URL=http://tubular.fodplanet.com]http://tubular.fodplanet.com[/URL] - The french speaking mailing list Back to top

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