iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

Not sure if anyone has heard of the Musical Instrument Museum, touted as the world's first global musical instrument museum. Jennifer the musical instrument curator was here today looking at pieces to add to the museum's collection, we narrowed it down to 10 didgeridoos from the 300+ instrument we have here. She's only in Australia for a few days before heading off again on seeking the rare, beautiful and the unusual in other countries. Pics below.

Just wondering here what forum members would consider as important didgeridoos to add to a museum's collection. I've got my own thoughts on this, and would probably pick out 20-30 sticks that I think are worthy of a museum collection, representing various regions, styles, ages etc.

Guan

Didn't she take any boomerangs, bilmas or bull-roarers as well ?

Yup, the museum is interested in all those as well. I'm trying to locate a northern Australian drum called the Wubarr (sometimes called Ubarr in the literature). Has anyone heard of it? It looks a little bit like a hollow log coffin but the ceremony by the same name is no longer practised. I've seen examples in books but never one in the flesh.

A 19th century Torres Strait Island drum would also be nice, but they're like AUD$1,000,000!

Guan

I see you've slimmed the collection down since my visit Guan!

Kidding aside, there are a few sticks in there I know you won't be selling, but I reckon are fantastic specimens for her to document (especially the blue beast, the stone country mago and a couple of the older bambo and Miwatj pieces).

If I were curating/collating a museum collection I would look for a selection of pieces which indicated the regional and historical differences of instrument design and decoration much like you would. An exhibit encompassing the information and examples something like the exhibition pages on your site. Playability would not really be the most important aspect for a museum but for me it would add instrinsic value should the examples also be stellar players representative of the top instruments of the respective region.

Hey Kyle,

That's only one pile of instruments in the pics, there's another 6 stashes of didgeridoos around the place!

Those are pretty good criteria similar to my own, but the museum said it has to be selective due to space and budget constraints. They want each item to tell a story and those stories must be easily understood by the public. Jennifer's selection was fairly representative, covering good geographic range (Maningrida, Milingimbi, Yirrkala, Daly River, Port Keats, the Kimberley in WA, Cobourg Peninsula) and materials used (bamboo, pandanus, eucalyptus), as well as time depth (1800s to 2008).

Guan

Looks like a an interesting idea for a museum in Phoenix and it will be just 7 hours drive from here. Any chance you'll have a visit when it opens, Guan? Come to LA, we'll tour the grand canyon on the way.

There are plans for workshops and performances by musicians, and I reckon a yidaki-making workshop with Djalu and a performance by Rripangu Yirdaki would not be out of place at the MIM. Jennifer agrees too but let's see what happens. The Grand Canyon eh, that sounds mighty good!

Guan

What a great idea, thanks for the link Guan. Will have to try to get there when it opens...

hello Guan!

i know my didjeridu aren't as good as yours, of course, and that it'd be much better for a museum to have the best specimen of each type always... but the Museu de la Música in Barcelona is showing a couple of didjeridu they got from me... I don't know if the museum you mention is the first one meaning "the first one to ever exist" or the first one meaning "the no1 in quality"... but the one in Barcelona has been working for many, many years... they had to shut it for a few years because they moved to a new venue, at the city's Auditorium building and they reopened it again some two or three years ago...

right before opening it again, they came around to buy a didjeridu from me... at that time, i suggested them to get two, one from EAL and another one from WAL (what a salesperson, hey!), but they argued they could only buy one... i then recommended them to buy a yidaki by Dhopiya/Djalu that resembled much to the old school yidaki, an Eb with a rather "far" sound, the kind of sound i particularly like... they liked it a lot and they took it...

and then, just recently, after Dh*g*rr*n's death, i decided to donate one of the mago from him i had left, perhaps the one with the best rarrk, since that was somehow his main role in the "two-people society", besides playing them, since Frankie could hardly see well for that... i thought it was a good way for many people to appreciate his skill without even playing it... and that mago is a very good player too...

have no pictures of them handy now, i'll try to get their files, or even i'll try to visit the Museu de la Música soon and get a couple of pics of them...

ah! right after they bought the yidaki, i donated them a set of ironwood bilma that Djalu had once given me... a chain of donations? again, i thought it was good to keep the wheel and let many people know about bilma too... a very rough set, by the way, i quite liked them... i have some footage of them being played in ceremony...

the link to the museum is:

http://w3.bcn.es/V62/Home/V62XMLHomeLin ... _1,00.html

Hi Marcos,

You make a good point there, I only used the "World's First" descriptor because the MIM itself does, look at its home page and it is right there at the top, in fact, the title of the site itself is called the "World's First Global Musical Instrument Museum". As to whether that claim is valid or not, I don't know to be honest, I also previously supplied a musical instrument museum in Taiwan, but I think where the MIM differs is that it focusses on 'traditional' and 'folk' instruments and truly tries to be global in its scope.

As well as taking didgeridoos, the MIM also expressed interest in some old clapsticks. The pic below is a pair destined for the museum, they're almost the best I have and I would not have sold them otherwise if they were not going to a museum. They're worth more than a lot of didgeridoos too!

Guan

hi there!

yeap, i just had a look at MIM's website, and yeah, it seems that "first global museum etc..." is like a subtitle acting as a trademark or something... but i actually think it isn't that important whether a museumn is #1 or #20, what really matters and what we should celebrate is that there are museums of music being open around the world... only if we could celebrate as well that the type of instruments shown there haven't still stopped being used in their contexts of origin...

those bilma look great man! are both pieces in the set of the same size? shouldn't one be bigger than the other, representing the yothu-yindi maxim?

dunno if anyone experienced problems opening the website of the Museu de la Musica in Barcelona... i did, it seems quite slow... the link to the english version is:

http://w3.bcn.es/V62/Home/V62XMLHomeLin ... _3,00.html

Hi Marcos,

You're right there, the fact that many musical traditions are still alive is cause for celebration. It would be a sad day if the things we cherish can be found only in museums...

Those clapsticks are great indeed, I wish I had more of them! Just as an aside, I don't call them bilma because bilma is a geographically-specific term from NE Arnhem Land as you know. It would be like calling all didgeridoos yidaki. It seems that because bilma is a fairly widely recognised word these days, it is being used generally for all clapsticks, or all Top End clapsticks. But there are a multitude of Indigenous words for clapsticks depending on language and geographic area. Anyway, that's just a little thing I thought I should point out.

Clapsticks don't always come in pairs where one stick is larger than the other. Take a look at the pic below showing a variety of styles, sizes etc. My favourite is the pair 2nd from the left, a great old ironwood pair from NE Arnhem Land (possibly Rirratjingu origin). I haven't heard the yothu-yindi thing for bilma, I thought bilma are Dhuwa, not Dhuwa-Yirritja?

Anyway, hope you enjoys the pics of these clapsticks. I checked out the Museu de la Musica website, looks nice!

Guan

hey!

oops, you're most right, i said bilma just like a reflex reaction, didn't pay much attention... and they don't look much like yolngu bilma, right... not even Arnhem Land clapsticks, where are they from? They look to me like Adelaide River even Wadaye... or perhaps to the other side, Ngukurr? what would be the right name for this pair?

about the moiety thing for clapsticks, someone told me once, can't remember who, can't even remember if it was country people or muninga... but it somehow made sense to me, considering the meaning and significance of the y-y relationship and the role of clapsticks and the person using them in performance, it usually being the songman... but as i said, never asked any further, so no clue if that's correct or not...

The clapsticks going to the MIM are from Wadeye (Port Keats), they are several decades old. In the local Murrinh-Patha language, clapsticks are called mirn’ga.

As far as I know, bilma are Dhuwa and are part of the Wagilak Sisters' mythology. There could be Yirritja ones and Yirritja-Dhuwa ones, but I haven't heard of them. Does anyone else know?

Guan