How to pronouce Bodhrán

The drum I play is a celtic goat skin drum called a Bodhrán.

If you are wondering how to pronounce that, it couldn’t be easier!

Wait. No, it could.

...but here’s how to figure it out your very own way!

Lets break it down:

The B is pretty non-contentious; everyone is fairly happy with the B; no beer fuelled late night fist fights outside bars about the B that I’ve ever heard of.

So your first task is to treat the ‘D’ like a bit of spinach stuck in a stranger’s teeth; be slightly disturbed by it, but basically politely just try to ignore it without comment and pretend its not there.

With luck, you should now have ‘Bohrán’ which is much harder to screw up as you have a bunch of choices.

For the first syllable, you can choose to go down the ‘Ow’ that hurt path, the ‘Aww’ its a puppy route , or take the ‘Oh’ I wasn’t expecting that prostate exam road - according to your inclination.

This leaves you with an observation test. If anyone has bothered themselves to include the wee gaelic thing above the á when writing the word, they want you to pronouce the last bit as 'rawn'. If not, all bets are off and it seems to be ok to choose either the ran or the ron ending if rawn doesn't really float your boat.

Now pat yourself on the back and finally choose between stressing the first syllable if you like to follow tradition, or the second if you like to be a bit out there and wacky, or are a hipster.

You have now taken your first steps into the inner temples of the goat-whacker, enabling you to start your very own late night beer fuelled celtic-pronunciation-challenge fist fights.

One good lie to use in pronunciation arguments, is to find the name of one of the smallest islands of the Inner Hebrides on a map, and swear blind its been pronounced your way there for over 1000 years. Just try to avoid the people that point out that the Bodhrán wasnt really used in music until the 1970s.

Here are a few of the favourite runners and riders;

BOUGH-rawn

BOW-rawn

Bore-AN

BORE-on

I went down the ‘BOUGH-rawn’ road, (as in bough of a tree) but you take your pick...

Whatever rocks your socks my friends.

...as long as you remember to forget the D.