What's That Sound? The Didgeridoo

by Beth Dolinar, Luminari Coordinator

In each issue of LUMOS!, we offer a regular series about the unique and unusual (and sometimes downright strange) instruments we’ve never heard. And since we can’t really understand an instrument until we’ve heard it being played, we’ll offer links to sites where you can hear and see a performance.

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And so we offer our seventh in a series of unusual instruments: DIDGERIDOO

Here’s an instrument that owes its existence to pesky insects.

Like kangaroos and that beautiful Sydney opera house, the didgeridoo is among the best-known images of Australia. And that long, strange horn has been part of Australia culture for more than a thousand years.

   

Aboriginals, the indigenous people of Australia, created the first didgeridoos from eucalyptus trees that were hollowed out by termites. Most are between 3 ft and 10 feet in length.

   

Musicologists classify the instrument as a brass aerophone. It is played by blowing air into the wood with a buzzing motion, much like how a trumpet is played. The sounds are produced by circular breathing, a tricky maneuver that requires the player to inhale and exhale almost simultaneously.

   

In Aboriginal culture, men alone play the didgeridoo. For centuries, women were prohibited from even looking at the horn for fear of disturbing the “spirits” and inviting earthquakes or other national disasters.

  

In recent years, the didgeridoo has gained popularity around the globe, both for the unusual but beautiful sound it produces but also for health benefits. A study in a British medical journal found that playing the didgeridoo may prevent snoring and asthma. Seems that circular breathing strengthens the airways. 

      

Who said termites are good for nothing?

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Luminari Coordinator, Beth Dolinar brings her talents and experience as a writer, Emmy-award producer, public speaker and deadline driven multi-tasker to our team. She writes a popular column for the Washington "Observer-Reporter." She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics and currently teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly -- because she likes a really good sentence.