Articles tagged ‘irish instruments’
Irish Instrument of the week - the bones
By Seán | July 8th, 2007 |
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This week’s instrument is the bones.
Exactly like they sound - the bones are two bones (usually the rib or lower leg bones of a goat) held in the hand and played to percussive effect.
Today “bones” are more often carved from wood. They are most commonly held concave sides facing away from each other on either [...]
Irish instrument of the week - bouzouki
By Seán | May 28th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
This week’s Irish instrument is the Irish bouzouki.
“Bouzouki?”, you may be asking, “is that an Irish word?”
No, it’s not. The bouzouki is actually a Greek instrument. In fact, the bouzouki is the first known fretted instrument in the world, acting as a precursor to the lute.
In the 1960s, Johnny Moynihan (you remember him from [...]
Irish instrument of the week - bodhrán
By Seán | May 21st, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Seeing as the last couple of posts have involved the Irish drum, I thought I would start a series on Irish instruments here with a piece on noble Irish bodhrán.
Pronounced here in Ireland as BOW (as in “wow”)-rahn (as in “gone”). I mention this because I find people have a difficult time knowing how to [...]
Michael Vignoles, Irish instrument maker
By Seán | January 3rd, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Below is a video I shot a few years ago when I went to get a bodhran in Galway. Wifey and Aubie were with me at the time.
I used to show this video to my kids when I was teaching a unit on Irish music. After the video, I’d pull out the bodhran [...]
