iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

I can remember in years past that didj forums were very active and trade in instruments was brisk. About two years ago things ground to a halt. Why is this? A lot of people say it's the economy...but then again, people don't need to buy didjes to sustain their interest. After all, some people participate on aviation related forums, but most of them cannot afford to buy a jet! People seem to have lost interest rather suddenly. Does this mean that the didj "boom" which started in the mid-90s and persisted for a decade has finally lost inertia? IDK the answers, but I wonder if things will ever be the same again-again-again-again (there's an echo in here )

Hmmm, Interesting question.. I have shut down my site here since getting back from OZ as it was costing me more to keep it open than any profit I made from what I have sold..... any theories on this would provide a good discussion base I think....


Paul

Maybe the market is saturated already like every didge player who wants a didge already has one? We had our biggest single order ever earlier in the year so there's still plenty of interest, I just don't update the iDIDJ Store because my photography set-up in the new house is not established yet many many months after moving in lol. You saw the mess here Paul

Guan

What mess?? ha ha ha..

Paul

I'm one of those who doesn't think cleaning is necessary lol!

Concerning the forum itself, I think that as every forum the interest of the forumers is limited in time :
After a few years, most of the subjects have been evoked and newbies find their answer using the "research" function rather than ask again the same question.
Though I'd also love to see plenty of new messages on my daily surf on iDidj... and maybe should I take the time to write some of these new messages too

I think the boom was in the 1990s Brian but then again I see a lot of new didgeridoo activity in new areas. South American for example now has a large population of didge players. Surprisingly also in my birth country Malaysia! So I would say there are many more didge players now compared to the 1990s, the scene has changed in a way in that didge activity is localised but also an international movement to connect people with similar interests.

G

I agree with Francisco - many of the questions posed and discussions raised have been dealt with before. If you've been in the scene long enough you'll have noticed this. It gets tiring going over old ground and some people drop out of the online discussion groups for this reason. Add to this the fact that many have growing families that take up more and more time and I think it will explain part of the reason for the slow down.

Kyle

Yea those crazy issues like women playing the didge, they're soooo old.

As far as the trad and cultural aspects of didge go, my feeling is that there is still a lot to explore and to learn, what we know in the public domain is very very little. It reminds me of other topics I'm interested in and researching at the moment in that there are few people who have true knowledge rather than re-hashed knowledge... there might be 3 people in the whole world who have a good grasp of these topics, but 1000s who have an opinion or who have read something or watched a video... it just isn't the same thing. The concept of knowledge itself... now that's what I'd like to get into.

Guan

Well, that post got things going a bit. I guess the forums have pretty much covered a lot of the topics like G and K said --and people are mostly lurking on the forum these days. I don't post much either, but I do check in periodically to see if there have been any new recordings or videos released. I dunno if the market is "saturated" though...I think that most of us would agree that you can never have too many didjes. As for myself, I'd still be buying new sticks if I hadn't lost my job. Anyway, glad to see that there are still a few people frequenting the board.

I think there has been an ebb and flow to the scene that is natural. I think it was about 1996 I was at Folklife Northwest in Seattle Washington (which was a real hub of US didj playing activity at that time). I was talking to Brian Pertl and later to Jammie Cunningham both of whom were very involved as performers and organizers in the scene there. They both told me in seperate conversations that the didj 'thing' was pretty much over and expressed gratitude that their livelihoods did not depend on the didjeridu. While I fully understood that making a living from didj sales, performances, recordings etc....was probably optomistic even at peak times, they were probably oversold it's "overness" a bit. I've found that interest in the instrument comes in waves over the years. New people discover it and carry it further. So long as the instrument's connection to it's original lands and owners remains, I think it's great. And I think the connection is still strong, interest may wax and wane from any one perspective, but worldwide, there is still a thurst for information (and instruments) that is not fully quenched by forums. A new people will come to this forum with some of the same questions we've heard before as well as new ones. This makes me say to those who find things a bit slow here...stay tuned!

I am the opinion that the market for didges is there as usual but that the way people interact has changed. The San Diego didge community at http://www.ididge.com is steady adding new members and losing a few along the way. Its the way we are communicating thats changing. Forums are shutting down. The latest casulty is didgeridootribe.com that best represents the USA didge world. Social networking has 'replaced' it for connecting to others. One liner statements have replaced the forum posts. I suspect that all that 'easy to research' information folks refer to may eventually be hard to find as the forums dissapear along with all those posts. Notice the slowdown in posts on all the boards such as serioussticks, Ididj.com, etc? Same pattern. Slowing until the lights go out. Someone must maintain it, some fees must be paid, and without that.... the information does indeed vanish.

Same for me!
My last connexion to this lovely forum was 18th of June 2011. Before the change of the instrument's name!

Why?

Because I don't have time to look periodically at this forum. New things in my life are more important since few months than reading idij forum, even yirdaki (oups, Mandapul) playing. Sadly I don't have too much time to play anymore. But for sure the sound of Y"rd"k" will always be in my heart, and I will always deeply appreciate the entire aboriginal culture.
The fact is that now, after 5 years or more on the forums, we all know the aboriginal culture, and we all know how to play didgeridoo. Personnaly I'm proud of my playing and of what I know on aboriginal culture. I know that I will never understand totally the aboriginal culture. And it's good, because I'm not aborigine, and will never be. I think there are so much things to do instead of wanting to know everything on one exotic culture. The important thing is to know some base lines of one culture, learn from it, and respect it as we respect ourselves. For the playing, I belong to the foolest part of players who want to play exacly like an aborigine, it means that I don't want to mix it with my whatever style. I'd like that my NEAL playing sounds like the NEAL style, not like a NEAL-like style. To achieve that, I know that the forums will not help me anymore. So these last two points could explain why I deserted the forum. And it's been two years and a half that I don't buy any Mandapul, my money goes now on other thing, especially for non traditional music .
These points could explain a lack of activity , these are my things but I think I can share that with other member (as members say before).

Furthermore, I've got other reasons, that are maybe more personals. I'd like to share it with you.
Actually thanks to my passion for aboriginal culture, it opens my mind to several things, and paradoxally I prefer to know better my country and learn how this world works. I dedicate my free time now otherwise. For example, soon in France we will have presidential elections, and we have to be aware of the politics. And it takes time to listen to journalists, investigations, etc... Because I think I'd better to do than reading a cultural forum; there is a crisis, economically, but on a lot of aspects too. Knowing better the aboriginal culture is not helpful for the future. Be part of changing our society has become more crucial. I'd like that France could be an example of freedom, like in the past. Well, it's not easy to write what I feel in english, but we have to change things in our rich countries, I think only that will have an impact on other people. Other non technologically-based people. We are opressed by our system and we opressed others, like the yolngu people.

Ok end of the political thing. But it was to explain the other reasons which lead to take me away from here. Of course I'd like to learn more on this forum and to play more Mandapul.
I just change my priorities, consciously.

I'm sorry if my words are maybe too violent. You will understand that I don't criticize anybody here. It's to share reasons of the declin, if declin there is.

Well I'm as keen and committed to my playing as ever, my weak area is knowledge, listening, practising and playing takes priority with me..

I'm still here too. My interest in trad sticks has never left me...but it does tend to fluctuate. I'll have spells where I bust out my CD's and Lp's...and I begin haunting the forums and online sites...and then after a while I'll begin drifting away from it. Despite this, I think it's still a lifelong obsession with me...I'll never, ever sell my collection of sticks, recordings, books and artifacts.