I'm just back from a week-long trip to visit family up north.

Sometimes on the mudcat I see serious dislike of the bodhran, and I never understood it. I have gone to many concerts by excellent Irish groups, and the bodhran solo was always a highlight. Well...

We spent an afternoon at my sister-in-laws wee apartment on Milwaukee's east side. The landlord had not turned the heat on yet, and I had my choice of two chairs, neither of which was big enough. In addition, my sis-in-law was playing a CD she had picked up in Ireland. It featured the shopkeeper's little sister, who sang every cut in a sweet, husky, little-girl voice. That style was new and cute about twelve years ago. Now it's getting old.

Once upon a time, I worked in a public library, and there was a six-year-old girl named Tammy who came in often. Tammy was blond, plump, and probably not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. She did have an unusual and charming trait - a sweet, husky flute-like voice. On Tammy it was never irritating because it was natural. On somebody aged twenty to thirty, it's not natural, it's a gimmick. Gimmicks are okay, but not for every single cut! Not for three hours in a cold apartment! Aaargh!

(Not every little girl has this voice. My own niece at the same age would shoot from the low alto range to a sopranino squawk in the space of one sentence.)

To get back to the CD -- for most of the cuts, our piping vocalist was accompanied by a bodhran player who didn't seem to realize that the rawhide on a bodhran doesn't sound good when it's too wet.

ATTENTION WORLD! If you want to be a bodhran player, then you need to learn how it's supposed to sound. You need to pay a lot of attention to how wet or dry the skin is, and if it's too wet or dry, you need to correct it. You also need to learn to do something besides thump it.

Suppertime finally came, and I had the chance to get soaked in a thunderstorm on the way to an Italian restaurant. Fortunately the restaurant wasn't playing any music.