Hide and Seek: An ears-first approach to interpreting rhythm and variation in Irish traditional melody [for the bodhrán]
With help from GoatNote,™ a flexible shorthand for visualizing rhythm, developing parts, and becoming a more responsive accompanist.
Hide and Seek is 54 pages long (there are a few blanks for your notes at the end) and measures 6" x 9" (~15.25 cm x ~23 cm). The image above was made by robots, but the book looks very much like that in real life.
Cover: 130 lb satin paper with matte touch finish; inside pages: 100 lb. uncoated paper.
There are a multitude of excellent resources available to teach you bodhrán technique and style, but this isn’t one of them!
While beginners are very welcome, this little book will be most useful to intermediate and advanced players looking to break out of ruts, build skills, decipher challenging passages, and become more flexible and responsive accompanists in whatever style they choose...
Hide and Seek begins by introducing GoatNote,™ a straightforward, flexible shorthand for notating bodhrán parts that I’ve developed over many years of real-world use. The main value of GoatNote is its simplicity - you can use it to quickly transcribe phrasing, sticking patterns, accented notes, ornaments, and pitch changes, either as a practice aid or a tool for creativity. Then, we use this simple system to deconstruct some commonly occurring rhythmic motifs in Irish traditional music, and develop possible responses to them.
To that end, Hide and Seek enlists the help of a few musical legends from the 1970s and 1980s - and you’ll find all the reference tracks that accompany this book at the link on the included postcard, and at annacollitonmusic.com. While these recordings provide invaluable context, the music is fast and complex, so feel free to listen along and apply these concepts to your own practice music if you’d prefer.
(Also, while this book focuses primarily on melodic variation, the same concepts apply to building grooves and working with other accompanists - but that's a topic for another book.)
