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Send us your review:
Describe the atmosphere and live music at a local pub, restaurant, festival, church or temple, club night.... inspire other people to check it out!
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Musician: Roy Arbuckle
Location: N.Ireland
Instruments: Voice / rhythm guitar / bodhran
Music: Irish folk / Scottish folk / African folk
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HOW I CAME TO THIS MUSIC听听听听听听听听听听WHERE I PLAY听听听听听听听听听听A FAVOURITE SONG |
  
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 听听Listen (3.02) to 'A Northern Man', performed by Roy Arbuckle and his group, Different Drums from the album, New Day Dawning (Red Branch Records, Londonderry, 2001)
听听Listen (3.37) to Roy Arbuckle talk about his music
'The farther away from Belfast, the more it's just a big drum and a wee drum. It is only here that the symbols are loaded with memory and association. Drums are an international language.'
How I came to this music:
It started in 1991 as a deliberate exercise in community relations. I was asked to do something in the community using arts as a vehicle. I came up with the concept of 'different drums,' which I borrowed from Henry Thoreau. It is the notion of people marching to the beat of different drums. At the same time I was reading a book by M Scott Peck called 'Different Drums' which was about the essential human need to be in community with other living things.
It struck me that there was a good philosophical underpinning for a project that addressed both the rights and respect of the individual and the rights and respect you have as part of your community.
Different Drums uses the potent symbols of the drums of the two main communities here in Northern Ireland -Nationalist and Unionist.
The Lambeg drum is a big base drum which is descended from the European military snare drum. At over three feet in diameter it's reckoned to be the loudest drum in the world. The way it's constructed and played is unique to Ulster and it would be very representative of the Protestant and Unionist people.
The wee drum, the bodhran, the name which comes from the Irish, meaning deafener, is also usually made from goats' skin. Drums like it are found all over the world. It's seen as a symbol of Nationalism and the Catholic people.
A couple of us got a chance to spend a week with the Kodo drummers from Japan and that gave us the idea to try something new. It was about exploring the sound of the drums and trying to create some sense of a new repertoire of out the two traditions.
We use the African idea of a drum family - a mother and father drum and a child drum. We have added the African Djembi drum. Four to five years ago it started to get more serious. We became a musical metaphor for a peace process that was happening at the same time.
I'm a songwriter and singer and I play the rhythm guitar. My first hero was Hank Williams when I was 15 years old. Different Drums plays traditional reels, jigs, hornpipes but with a big percussion sound. Unlike most traditional groups, there is just one lead instrument and four or five rhythm or percussion instruments. We use pipes and whistles which work best with the drums.
At the moment we are in a quiet time. We're working on new material for another CD. We're considering going more techno. I don't like to think of it as a finished article, rather it's a process.
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