No Tim, just been listening to the music for thirty odd years and interviewing traditional musicians talking about it.
Surely you're not one of these divas who believe that only musicians have a right to an opinion on music (and then only offer favourable ones)- are you?

Of course you are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but I would take a great deal more notice of an opinion from someone who plays an instrument than from someone who does not.

Learning to play an instrument gives you a totally different perspective on that instrument and on playing instruments in general.

By commenting the way you do in this thread, I would suggest you are stepping outside your area of expertise.

I ended up briefly in an ad hoc percussion section at a recorder playing day (no part for contrabass in the piece they were playing at that time) and it gave me a great deal more respect for percussionists generally. As to trying to read a percussion part from notation - definitely interesting. Most of those playing in the main recorder group seemed to think we were OK, I thought we were dreadful - it was fun though :-)

Well played, percussion can add to any musical session, badly played it can destroy the session. Those who say that you need to learn to play the Bodrhan properly before you attempt to play in sessions are spot on. It has to be treated like any other instrument in that respect and you need to at least learn the basics. However once you are confident you have a decent feel for rhythm, then playing in a session is one way in which you can improve. You can only get so far playing on your own. Playing with others is a whole different game and the only way to learn to play effectively with others is.....















to play with others.