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 didgeridoo information

What are the factors affecting Aborigine didgeridoo sound?


Every genuine Aborigine didgeridoo has its own spirit, a uniqueness arising from

  •   the inside configuration and measure as the aftermath of termites' feast,
  •   the species of the tree, more precisely, its density,
  •   the thickness of the walls, thick enough not to crack, thin enough for good resonance,
  •   the length of the didgeridoo, real and adjusted by the third of the base diameter,
  •   the ratio of the top and base diameters, the taper and more...
The didgeridoo sound is determined by these objective factors apart from the subjective: the didgeridoo player or puller. The first two contributing elements are given by Nature, but the last three elements can be attuned, more or less, by the expertise of an accomplished craftsman, the didgeridoo maker.

All these characteristics will directly influence the quality of the didgeridoo sound or rather the oneness of it, the spirituality of didgeridoos. Some of these sound qualities are very subjective, everybody has a different taste for tonality or accent, even the objective criteria can have different priorities for different people. In other words, there are no absolute criteria to determine the sound quality of an Aborigine didgeridoo.

David Hudson: "The inside of a didjeridu has been eaten out naturally by termites. And all those little cracks and tracks that termites have lived in helps resonate that sound. It gives the didjeridu a warm, strong, earth sound. Something that PVC pipe can't create because these are all natural sounds, earth sounds. With a didjeridu you are playing a piece of timber that comes from an ancient land. It's been made and painted by an Aboriginal person. It has that feel about it. You can get PVC pipe from a hardware store. That's like playing mum's vacuum cleaner, you know? It's a black spirit that's within. The didjeridu has its own independent sound that's an ancient voice. It has charm that's quite mesmeric."

With a regular, symmetrical pipe one substitutes the adequate measurements into the proper formulae and calculates the sound characteristics. The inside configuration of a termite hollowed stick is unique with its twisting grooves and bumps. The cross-section is ever changing along its whole length - an unpredictable 'Dreamtime factor' is ever present making the formulae useless: this is the spirit of Aborigine didgeridoo.

Didgeridoo spirituality is a very earthy phenomenon, it comes from the 'work' of the termites: they eat out the inside of every eucalyptus didgeridoo to a different shape. As a consequence, didgeridoo playing is not about imitating David Hudson, but to let this individual soul of your didge take you on an unrestrained ramble in the wonderful landscape of piquantly sentimental didgeridoo sounds. Be one with your instrument. (Ben Hammond writes: "the didge is second perhaps only to the voice in its connection to the player". More about this on How to play the didgeridoo page.)

Look for the oneness, the individuality, the 'didgeridoo spirituality' when choosing your instrument. In your quest for the best don't aim for the faultless, the perfectly shaped, inside and out - it's contrary to the essence of an Aborigine didgeridoo! When playing the didgeridoo, again, be yourself - make your own didgeridoo sounds, compose your own music.

Every aborigine didgeridoo is a class of its own. Still, there are a couple of characteristics you can evaluate with and make up your mind about a particular didgeridoo's sound qulity.