Why is there no bodhran in bluegrass?

[Broomstick]

@Bridget_Burke

One might as well ask why Bluegrass bands don’t include uilliean pipes & pennywhistles.

I don’t know about the pennywhistles but the uilliean pipes are quite difficult to learn and a nightmare to take care of what with all the moving parts and multiple reeds. You don’t see too many reed instruments in bluegrass, either.

[Chronos]

At most of the contra dances I’ve been to, the band described themselves as “bluegrass”. Maybe they’re not what a purist would call bluegrass, but it’s certainly close. And contra-dance bands don’t have bodhrans, either.

Quoth aceplace57:

Why is the OP suggesting a drum would replace a violin? A violin plays melody lines. A drum is a percussion instrument.

He’s not suggesting that. He’s only comparing them to fiddles to make clear that the reason for their lack is not difficulty in making them. If the settlers from the Old Country retained the craftsmanship, skills, and tools to make something as fiddly (heh) as a violin, then surely they also retained the ability to make bodhrans.

[An_Gadai]

In The Bodhrán: The Black Sheep in the Family of Traditional Irish Musical Instruments
David G. Such, published in The Galpin Society Journal, Vol. 38 (Apr., 1985) the author suggests that dedicated bodhrán production only began in the 1930s, that hitherto a skin tray called a wight which served multiple purposes in rural households, had doubled as the drum. The author says there may well be more ancient origins but scant documentary evidence exists for the instrument prior to the 1950s. I see from the Wiki entry that visual documentary evidence from the 1830s does exist though it seems that whenever the instrument was devised, it only became a common, recognisable instrument in Irish music mid-20th century.

[Ranger_Jeff]

@missred

In bluegrass and old time string music, the bass tends to take over the percussion duties, along with, at times, jugs, mouth harp and spoons. In some of the gospel string bands you’ll also see the tambourine. Hand claps and finger snaps are used as well.

Mouth harp as a percussion instrument? I’m doubtful of that. You forgot to mention washboard, though.

[Doctor_Jackson]

The washboard is not much used in bluegrass, it is more of a zydeco or cajun style instrument.

[Lasciel]

@Chronos

And contra-dance bands don’t have bodhrans, either.

This is more than somewhat off-topic, but having just come from a contra dance weekend, I have to throw in that is a wild oversimplification of contra music, as well as an increasingly outdated stereotype. Drum-based (so many types of drums) percussion is alive and well in modern contra music.

I will grant you that bands that bill themselves as “bluegrass” first and “contra dance bands” second are much more likely to fit into the traditional mountain trio/quartet of fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and “everything else.”

As to the original question, it may also have to do with solo ability. A solo fiddle can carry a tune perfectly well, as can any other string. If you’ve only got the finances or the room for one “real” instrument, better to make it one that can do the most by itself.

From another angle, why bother having an official instrument to percuss, when items around the house and yard can be gathered and coopted to handle that task perfectly well? Jugs, homemade tambours, and even body parts get used regularly for percussion, and work perfectly fine. On the other hand, I’ve never once met someone who could jury-rig a fiddle from their kitchen supplies.

[Chronos]

Would you prefer if I said that most contra bands lack bodhran? I probably haven’t been to as many dances as you, but I’ve never seen one.

[Bridget_Burke]

@SeldomSeen

The slide guitar didn’t really come from Hawaii. It’s use in the “traditional” Hawaiian sound Is a relatively late innovation. In fact, the guitar in any form only arrived in Hawaii in the 1800’s, brought by Mexican cowboys. the slide/string concept originated in Africa, per Wikipedia. Native Hawaiian music apparently used percussion and voice.

Here’s one source that traces the Hawaiian steel guitar’s influence on country & blues.

The primary weapon of the Hawaiian invasion was the steel guitar. Many have taken credit for its invention, and it is possible that the technique of noiselessly sliding a piece of glass, steel, or bone across the strings of a guitar developed independently, multiple times: a convergence in music technology. Nevertheless, the story of the native Hawaiian Joseph Kekuku has emerged from music history’s apocrypha as the best documented and accredited case. After a teenage Kekuku’s alleged seven years of privately perfecting his method in the 1880s and 1890s, it swept the islands and then worked its way to the mainland…

One could speculate that the vocal-like quality of the slide technique was attractive to early country musicians who had previously used instruments like the fiddle and harmonica to imitate the human voice. The first country performer believed to have recorded a steel guitar on his lap in the established Hawaiian style was a West Virginian coal miner named Frank Hutchison, who cut two songs, “Worried Blues” and “Train that Carried the Girl from Town” in 1926. Jimmie Rodgers would record thirty-one songs featuring the steel guitar during his career (and play ukulele on one). Maybelle Carter of the celebrated Carter Family converted her guitar to a “Hawaiian setup” in 1928. The first ensemble to be labeled on a record as “hillbillies,” a collection of string musicians from North Carolinian and Virginian counties, made early use of the steel…

The Hawaiian influence upon African-American blues musicians is evident as well, although it demands more careful historical scrutiny as some sort of sliding technique on guitar may have been invented independently by black players. W. C. Handy, the “Father of the Blues,” recalled the “unforgettable” effect of seeing a man in 1903 pressing “a knife on the strings of [a] guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars.” Some scholars have argued that the early blues technique of sliding a knife or broken neck of a bottle against guitar strings may have roots in an African instrument, a single-stringed musical bow. Significantly, most blues players of the era held their guitars in the upright position, in contrast to the Hawaiian style in which the instrument is rested on the performer’s lap.

Nevertheless, the seminal bluesman Charlie Patton played in both styles. A set of blues guitarists in the 1930s, including Kokomo Arnold, Casey Bill Weldon, Oscar Woods, Tampa Red, and Black Ace adopted the Hawaiian style and incorporated the Hawaiian practice of playing long melodic lines, as opposed to a blues style defined by short, staccato riffs…

[ZoeRPM]

I suspect that, as it#s cheap to make, a drum of any kind would not be a priority over a more valuable instrument such as a violin or accordian for transporting from the British Isles to North America. The bagpipes may also have been dumped due to their tendency to go out of tune in the ‘wrong’ climate (too hot, too dry, too damp, etc.).

[WordMan]

@Bridget_Burke

Here’s one source that traces the Hawaiian steel guitar’s influence on country & blues.

Yeah, that’s my understanding. Also, in the first post, it asserted that Hawaii got guitars from Mexico. That’s incorrect - it was from Portugal. My mom has some very early Portuguese built-in-Hawaii ukuleles.