The Didjeridu

My favourite musical instrument and this is didj country! To make a didj you need a suitable hollowed out bloodwood or stringbark branch. Then you start to strip the bark, fix up the hollow and customise it (sometimes with painted designs). The tourists who joined this workshop were from all over the world - Japan, England, N.Z., Germany, France. Thus there are some didjs destined for a plane ride, assuming customs allows them. I took a didj on a plane from Sydney to Dubbo. The baggage handler said, "That looks like a tree branch." "It is!" A little girl was smiling at me so I spoke to her before I realised that she spoke French. However, she knew the name of her toy koala.

The hard part of the didj is getting a good sound out of it. There was a didj playing competition comprising two sections - indigenous and non-indigenous players. The Japanese players had some interesting sounds but the indigenous players were wonderful - different sounds and different rhythms but the drone vibrates through you. It was a real treat to hear them.