The Instruments we play

The Bodhran (pronounced "Bow - ran") is a hand held frame drum played with a small club called a "tipper" The frame drum is one of the oldest instruments on earth. The bodhran, specifically has a drum head (which today is made either of hide or nylon) streched across a wooden cylinder about 24 inches in diameter. The depth of the frame varies, but almost all bodhrans have a cross brace inside that allows the player to place her hand inside the drum and press her palm against the drum head on the inside. This allows the player to control the tension on the drum head as she plays.

Trix and Jennifer both play the bodhran. Jennifer's frame is made of walnut with a fixed rawhide drum head. Trix's frame is deeper, with a rawhide drum head. However Trix's drum is affixed to an inner ring that has tension adjustment screws mounted along the inside. This configuration allows the drum to be "tuned".

Cittern

This is a small 5 stringed medieval instrument that has an open chord tuning. It has a flat back, frets, and is usually either strummed or plucked. Jim's cittern can be heard quite well from about 6 inches away.

Fiddle/Violin

This is a standard classical violin. John and Becky both play versions of this instrument. It has been said that the difference between a fiddle and a violin is the nut holding the bow.

Hammered Dulcimer

A Hammered Dulcimer is a large trapezoidal box with between 32 and 64 courses of strings strung across it. The player holds a small wooden hammer in each hand and plays the strings in sequence. The instrument is found mostly in folk bands along the east coast. Bill is the dulcimer player for us.

Hardanger Fiddle

This is a fiddle that originated in scandanvia. It resembles a fiddle in that it has four strings strung over a standard sized bridge. However, the Hardanger Fiddle has four additional strings, each mounted below the main or "bowed" strings. These strings are "sympathetic" strings. That is, they are not played directly, but instead are allowed to vibrate when the "bowed" strings are played.

John owns and plays the Hardanger Fiddle occasionally.

Irish Bouzouki

The Irish Bouzouki is an evolved form of the Greek instrument bearing the same name. It is a stringed instrument with a small body and a long, fretted neck. It double-strung, which is to say that it has pairs, or "courses" of strings which are fretted and plucked together (as on a twelve-string guitar). The Greek bouzouki can have either three or four "courses" and several different tunings are used. Some common tunings are D-A-D, D-A-E-D, and G-D-A-E (low to high), an octave lower than a mandolin.

Early in the last century, some Irish musicians began experimenting with the bouzouki in their bands. They made the body larger and oval shaped. This became what is known today as the Irish Bouzouki and is quite prevalent in Celtic Traditional music today. Mike's Bouzouki is a Trinity Bouzouki and he has it tuned like an octave mandolin.

Irish Flute

The irish flute differs from the classical flute in a number of ways. First, the irish flute is usually made of wood. There has been some speculation as to the kind of sound this produces. However I once heard about a demonstration with an experimantal concrete flute that produced a similar sound as a wooden flute. That leads me to believe that the materiel used is less a factor in the timbre of the sound produced than the thickness of the materiel and the shape. Because the Irish flute is made of wood, it is physically thicker at the holes than a classical metal flute, which will affect the tuning and produce a richer timbre. The second feature of the Irish flute is it is usually tapered. The classical flute is cylindrical. This also affects the tuning and timbre of the instrument as it produces a differently "shaped" sound. A third difference is in the tuning. The classical flute is tuned to concert pitch, meaning that playing each note without fingering a sharp or a flat plays a natural note. The Irish Flute is usually tuned to the key of D. This means that playing a "C" or an "F" note without fingering any accidentals (you cover a hole in half to flatten the note played), actually plays a "C sharp" or an "F sharp". To play a "C" natural or an "F" natural, the player must "flatten" the "C" or "F" hole. Not all Irish flutes are tuend to "D" however. Some are tuned to "A" or "E flat". Finally, the classical flute has a number of keys used to reach the holes. This is called the "Boehm System" flute. The Irish flute usually has only six holes and possibly, up to 8 keys which are used simply for playing accidentals. This is called a "Simple System" flute.

Pennywhistle

The Pennywhistle is a small six hole whistle with a fipple head similar in structure to the Recorder. It is small, compared to the flute, and is usually made of tin, copper or brass. The head is usually wood or plastic. This is an extremely inexpensive instrument that is used quite extensively in Irish and other celtic music bands. The most popular pennywhistle in the United States is the Clark.

Mike plays a whistle which is tuned in the key of D.

Recorder

Recorders are "fipple flutes", like whistles. Today most people's idea of a recorder is a small, plastic, squeaky thing played by fourth grade students, but in the hands of a skilled player even the highest-pitched recorder is a sweet-toned instrument that rivals the silver flute in all but range and volume. The modern recorder is a style introduced during the Baroque period. Renaissance recorders are less common, have a wider bore, and have a sweeter tone. Medieval recorders had a straight bore (as opposed to later recorders, which are widest near the fipple (whistle part) and narrowest at the foot (part furthest from the player)), a softer sound, and much less range. (Info on medieval recorders from the recorder home page. Info on renaissance and baroque recorders from personal observation.)

There are several sizes of recorder, ranging from "garklein" through "extended great bass". The size played by schoolchildren is usually the soprano, which has middle C as its lowest note. Above the soprano is the sopranino, which starts on F; and the garkelein, which starts an octave above middle C. Below the soprano is the alto, which starts on F an octave below the sopranino; the tenor, which starts an octave below middle C; the bass, which starts an octave below the alto; the great bass, an octave blow the tenor; and the extended great bass, an octave below the bass. While each recorder has a range of only two octaves (though I've seen references to skilled players being able to play part of a third octave), the recorder family as a whole spans pretty much the entire range of notes you'd want to hear. The most common sizes are sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, and bass.

A recorder has seven holes on the front (three for the left hand and four for the right) and a thumb hole on the back (left hand). Most have double holes for the bottom two holes, and larger recorders have keys for the harder to reach holes.

Felicia plays a wooden soprano recorder and sometimes a tenor recorder.

Six String Guitar

This is a standard large size 6 String Guitar. Glenn's 6 String is surgically attached to his fingers.

Twelve String Guitar

This is a standard 12 String Guitar. It is tuned in 6 "courses" of two strings each. Some of the lower strings are paired with an octave string. Both Glenn and occasionally Jim play the 12 String.

Viola

This is a standard 4 stringed classical viola. John's Viola is an instrument he made himself at a workshop a few years ago.

Viola de Gamba

The Viola de Gamba (or viol) dates from the about the 1300s and comes in a family of different "voices", including treble, tenor, bass, double bass, and great bass, parallel to the recorder and lute families contemporary to its period (roughly 1300s through late 1600s). Felicia plays a bass viol.

It is tuned like a lute and, also like a lute, has movable frets and 6 strings, all made of gut.

In Italian, "gamba" means "leg", so the viola da gamba, or 'viol of the leg', is a viol that rests on the player's lap if it is a smaller model, or on the player's inner calves if it is a bass model. Double bass and great bass violas da gamba must be played standing up.

The bass viol that Felicia plays resembles a cello in appearance, but differs in that it has six strings and frets whereas a cello has 4 strings and no frets. Also the bridge is less "steepled" than that of a cello. While a cello can go down to low C, the bass viol goes down to low D. The cello has an end-pin on the bottom. Since the viola de gamba is played on the leg, it has no end pin.

The bowing technique is radically different on a viola da gamba than on a cello. The bow is balanced (weighted) differently and held with the palm at (and touching) the hair, whereas the cello style of bowing has the palm above the wooden bow and not touching the bow at all, more like on a violin.