Recently I have been very interested and influenced by this ancient Aboriginal instrument. They are long straight wind instruments, often played by men at Corroborrees (an evening ceremonial event that traditionally marks an important occasion in society), and are made from hollow branches or trees (created by termites). The termites start the process and the hollow trees are then harvested by the Aborigines, who strip the bark, carve images and paint remarkable stories with animals on them using a dot painting technique that is thousands of years old. It is native to certain indigenous Aboriginal tribes who have occupied Australia's Northern Territory for thousands of years. It is known in Australia's Arnhemland as "Yidaki", which means "Emu Throat". I first heard its haunting sound when I went to the 2006 Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit as part of the SSR Fantic Club gathering that year. It was there I met Rich Karakoudas who introduced all of us at the event to the Didgeridoo. He had several in his SSR and pulled out one with a frilly necked lizard carved into it, along with yucca plants and numerous dot patterns. I will never forget that deep haunting sound that reverberated through all of us, and the quality and uniqueness of the art work immediately got my attention. It was from then on that I became obsessed with the music, art and culture that surrounds this instrument.
I learned that there are many types of didgeridoos and that the art work from the Aborigines is in high demand and severely exploited world wide. Most of the time, the art tells a story about the quest for food or water, often done in complex dot patters forming concentric circles and encapsulated animal forms. Fortunately some of the web sites and companies making and selling the instruments are helping educate others about the culture and sending percentages of their sales to help the Aborigines. The most sought after didgeridoos are hand crafted by just a few artisans from several tribes. There are an incredible number of imitators out there pretending to be authentic and getting a true Yidaki can be confusing. Many non-traditional didgeridoos made by craftspeople from other countries from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds make some very interesting and beautiful didgeridoos as well. The true test is just finding out how well it plays for you. I am not going to try here to explain how to play as there are numerous web sites that can do that much better and I will give you the links for that.
Some of the types of didgeridoos I have acquired are from various materials. I made the mistake of thinking that all the web sites that sold didgeridoos were selling true "Yidaki", but alas, being an artist, I fell in love with the traditional dot pattern of my first "Teak" didgeridoo that I found later was actually made in Indonesia! I got my motor boat buzz going with my lips and was able to get a good drone going and a few vocals as well. Visually it was stunning with lizards and concentric circular dot patterns that would certainly amaze a blind person with their unique textural qualities. One week later it cracked, as teak most often does. All I had purchased was a really cool looking artistic log that was an imitation of the real thing. I actually bought two of these, which later turned out to be pretty good teaching tools for the dot patterns my students would make so it was not a total loss. I was also able to fix the crack with sawdust and wood glue and then repainted it myself.
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Notice the two images on the left of my "Indonesian" didgeridoo and compare it with my friend Rich's didgeridoo with the two on the right. The frilly necked lizard is carved by real Aborigines as are the dot patterns and plant material. His is from a hollowed out eucalyptus log. |
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On the left are some of my personal didges in various materials from eucalyptus, PVC, teak, and plastic. I discovered that some of the "Modern" didgeridoos were not so bad after all, and I got quite a few from the didgeridoostore.com and laoutback.com. The PVC is much easier to play and comes in a variety of sizes that make some incredible sounds. Some have beeswax mouthpieces while others have molded or rubber mouthpieces.
Below my wife Kris is playing a PVC didgeridoo with a moulded mouthpiece and I am playing a fiberglass "Yucca" digeridoo and they both are very easy to play.
On the bottom left is the Barmundi fish, typically used in Aboriginal designs and on the right is a print depicting a story using turtles and dot patterns. I got these prints from Crystal Productions to use as teaching tools with my students so they could make their own didgeridoos from PVC pipe. They have been very successful at it! Creatures were often shown in different profiles. Animals, fish, birds, and plants are usually shown in profile (side view), whereas turtles, frogs, and reptiles, were show from the top view. Often the internal organs of the animals were shown in addition to encapsulated forms and cross hatched designs. Some artists paint them while others burn and carve them into the didgeridoo. The concentric circles represented waterhole's or gatherings and were often used as maps done in dot patterns. The dots, stripes, cross hatching's and patterns were their way of telling a story.
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