What is that?!

It’s a didgeridoo!

How is it played?

Continuous playing is done with ‘circular breathing’, a technique that requires a person to inhale and exhale simultaneously. The sounds you hear are variations combination of vocalizations and singing, tongue placement and embrature, diaphragm movements and breathing patterns that all combine into spontaneous rhythm.

What is the Didgeridoo?

The didgeridoo is a branch or tree that is hollowed out by termites who burrow through the wood to stay out of the sunslight. The instrument is completely hollow, and uses circular breathing to play.

Originating in Australia, the didgeridoo is a cultural icon of the Australian Aboriginals, who would use the instrument during rituals, ceremony and communication. Natively called the ‘Yidaki’, the didgeridoo is said to bring a person to the dreamtime, the realm of the great mythic beings who formed the cosmos from nothing, the domain of the first men who walked the earth whose actions created the universe.

The native style of playing represents the sounds of nature, and of the cultural dreamtime of the aboriginal people. The most ancient culture of the world, with a stable social structure that lasted over 6,000 years, the Aboriginal tribes each had their own particular didgeridoo language and style to express their own individual place in the universal dreamtime. These songs and traditions were passed on for generations, from father to son, and are considered sacred treasures.

Speaking nearly 230 different language and dialects, the aboriginal people have lived in social unity for millenia, walking in patterns that represent and recreate the actions of the dreamtime makers, with specific locations correlating to exact occurrences, living off the land as nomad hunters and gatherers, including making the didgeridoo.

Where can I find out more?
Browse this site, or visit the resource links located at: http://www.didgeridooblog.com/links/

Who runs this show?

Keith has been playing the didgeridoo for nine years and instructing for three. An artist, musician, writer, photographer, multi-instrumentalist, computer geek, meditation instructor, mentor and internet entrepreneur, Keith integrates all of his life expressions to maximum living potency.

Trained in meditation, Keith bases all of his rhythms on the heartbeat, and is able to best express himself through the didgeridoo when the mind is quiet and the didgeridoo plays itself.

“The didgeridoo has been transformational in my life, I appreciate what it has taught me.”

Keiths plays the didgeridoo according to his own dreamtime, and sounds nothing at all like an aboriginal didgeridoo player. He is completely self-taught, and while he respects the traditional techniques of playing the didgeridoo, Keith believes that only an Australian Aboriginal can play the didge like an aborigine because it is their culture, history and dreamtime that is expressed in their time-tested techniques passed on for who knows how many generations. Anybody else will just sound like a poor imitation.

Since Keith is not an aborigine, and probably won’t be one anytime in the near future, he has instead discovered and explored his own methods for playing this timeless instrument. He is fully expressive in his own discovery of the didgeridoo, and welcomes you to his dreamtime.

For another great description of the didgeridoo, Read This.