iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

Hello, all! I am a new member, and I have hesitated to post because I am not a musician (tho I am an enthusiastic listener)

I do have a lifelong interest in cultures other than my own, and specifically in indigenous Australian cultures, but when I was young, all I could read was what was written by people from my own culture. And I could not make heads nor tails of it, all these descriptions of 'the dreaming' and kinship systems that seemed unfathomably complex.

Strangely, now that more direct communications between the cultures are possible with the internet, it's starting to make sense to me - only just starting!! I can't say I understand by a long shot, but something is starting to resonate for me.

If anyone has not seen this website, it's worth checking:
http://www.12canoes.com.au/

I know this is not about didjeridu, and I am learning about that too, from all your posts, and from the musicians I find on youtube. Thanks for that!
Cindy

Welcome on board Cindy !

Welcome Cindy good to have you here! reckon you will love this forum from what is written in your opening comments.

Have fun

paul

Thanks, Ahaw, ozmadman! Now I have a question. I have started to appreciate didjeridu via an interest in Yolngu culture, before music. But most people on here seem to be musicians. So I wonder, how did people become interested in this instrument?

Whew! Hard question to answer. I became attracted to the didjeridu the very first time I heard it - which was many years ago on some black-and-white ethnographic film. I doubt many people can put into words why they are drawn to the didj - one just is - and AFAIK there is nothing else quite like it. I've never seen any other reaction from "first time listeners" than total silence, jaws dropping and eyes popping out. It's an unearthly sound and it's not hard to imagine why the Aboriginal people seized on it and made it into such an important aspect of their culture. To me, it is more of a sound generating instrument rather than a "musical" instrument - I can't imagine trying to play Tchaikovsky on one - so the "music" comes from the total ie. singing. clapsticks, didjeridu and even dancing.

Hi Cindy

You may find (don't quote me!)that the majority here are not in fact musicians! I am certainly not and have no musical background at all apart from a keen interest in listening to music and neither is Guan (the host of this site and ididj Australia). My interest started in bringing back a didgeridu as a souvenir after an Australian holiday back in1999 but it never got played as it is (still got it) quite small a not really a musical instrument. Another visit to OZ a few years later and another didge came back with me, this time with the intention of learning how to play it, not much happened for a number of years and so I didn't start to get to grips with playing with regular practise until I got a laptop around the time I joined this forum ... then it all came together as this new world and culture was available for me to explore through the pages of the internet. How sorry I was that I had previously purchased at least two non genuine instruments in the past!!! I made it my goal to explore this culture and correct my errors and put something back... which I have by buying only authentic traditional instruments and supporting the ididj philanthropy appeal as and when I can .. my interest/respect in Aboriginal culture/music was born and since then as part of that I try to play my instruments in a way that shows respect for them and their place in the culture where they belong..

Paul

It is a pretty unique instrument, and I take your point about it not being 'musical' per se... I had a weird experience a week or so ago where I was watching a performance that Guan had uploaded to youtube, and was sort of getting into the trance that the sounds seem to induce, when a group of bagpipers started up outside my window. A very peculiar combination, because they are both unearthly, but in quite different ways!

I see that when a player of didjeridu plays solo, they seem to sort of provide their own clapsticks by tapping...

yes they do, seems easy but I find it pretty difficult to do. For me, instead of helping keep the beat it puts me off still thats something else to practise!!!

Paul

Ooops, I'm quoting you...

Well, that is interesting... because I have been afraid to post here for some time since I figured everyone was a didge master and I would be the only non-musician. I have seen fake 'didjeridus' here and there as souvenirs, even here in Maine, but they never looked too promising, and I have a better sense now than ever that a real one has a commanding physical presence as well as a commanding tonal one.

I share your appreciation for the knowledge that the internet has made possible. It's pretty different from reading 'anthropological texts', that's for sure...

I recently discovered iDIDJ Philanthropy, and am going to try to do my part too, as you say, as and when I can, because I am getting a lot. I am not entirely comfortable with my own culture's 'way of being in the world', in terms of religion and cosmology and, uh, TV and shopping malls and - well, you know what I mean. I am most appreciative to be able to try to understand another way of being in the world.

One more comment, tho I am getting long-winded... I am rather fascinated by the idea of people who know where their people come from, and feel that sense of continuity. Like lots of Americans, my ancestors come from all over the place, places I've never been and feel no real connection to. That is a loss, I think, and so I am a bit envious of people who have a sense of continuity, and sense of place, that I will never know.

Okay, sorry if I am going on! I sometimes do that...

Cindy


Hi Cindy

You may find (don't quote me!)that the majority here are not in fact musicians! I am certainly not and have no musical background at all apart from a keen interest in listening to music and neither is Guan (the host of this site and ididj Australia). My interest started in bringing back a didgeridu as a souvenir after an Australian holiday back in1999 but it never got played as it is (still got it) quite small a not really a musical instrument. Another visit to OZ a few years later and another didge came back with me, this time with the intention of learning how to play it, not much happened for a number of years and so I didn't start to get to grips with playing with regular practise until I got a laptop around the time I joined this forum ... then it all came together as this new world and culture was available for me to explore through the pages of the internet. How sorry I was that I had previously purchased at least two non genuine instruments in the past!!! I made it my goal to explore this culture and correct my errors and put something back... which I have by buying only authentic traditional instruments and supporting the ididj philanthropy appeal as and when I can .. my interest/respect in Aboriginal culture/music was born and since then as part of that I try to play my instruments in a way that shows respect for them and their place in the culture where they belong..

Paul[/quote]

Ha! I believe you! I don't have a didge, but I have been playing around just trying to picture what the circular breathing feels like... but I can't really imagine it. It looks, uh, hard.
:O

Only as a hard as riding a bike when you don't know how!!! once you do you wonder what the fuss was all about!! I can "circular breathe" without even realising I am doing it when I get into playing. Its psychological and not physiological as far as I can see, just re-training your mind to do something a bit different. did you know that the term "circular breathing" is alien to the Yolngu culture, they don't teach it as such or have a term for it, they just explain where you breathe and leave the rest up to the person how the manage to fit the breath in, it just comes naturally eventually with practise...

Paul

That makes sense... and both skills are probably easier to acquire when you're a kid, but I think I know what you mean about it being something you have to do without 'thinking'. I am a CAD drafter, and when someone asks how to 'do something' in the software that I use every day, I don't have a clue. I need to sit down and ask my fingers. It's a different kind of knowledge than intellectual.

what' s a CAD drafter?

Computer assisted design, which means I sit all day at a computer making drawings for a small architectural firm. Then I come home and sit all night at a computer. It's not the healthiest way to live, and I have been in healthier situations in the past, but at the moment... I sit at a computer all the time! If I'm not asleep, I'm at a computer. No wonder I'm restless...
:/

Know what you mean about being stuck in front of a computer all day!!! I used to be a SQL programmer for the Royal Bank of Scotland (credit card fraud section)until they did me a favour last year and made me redundant which got me out of the rat race at last , previous to that I was a window cleaner and a 250 mile a week cyclist, slight difference!!! now I work part time,cycle everywhere as I got rid of the car, couldn't justify the expense, and prefer to be outside rather than stuck inside, just starting to get the balance right in my advancing years,, ha ha


Paul