A eucalyptus branch hollowed by termites, one low drone, and a mouth that reshapes it like speech.
A eucalyptus branch hollowed by termites, one low drone, and a mouth that reshapes it like speech.
The lips buzz into a ring of beeswax at the narrow end, as on a trumpet but loose and low. Players keep the drone going with circular breathing: air stored in the cheeks keeps the lips buzzing while they breathe in through the nose.
A slightly flaring tube about 1.2–1.5 m long. Like a stopped pipe it gives one deep fundamental; its higher resonances are not harmonic, so overblowing gives a separate "toot" rather than a scale.
The player's own vocal tract is part of the instrument. Its resonances are as strong as the tube's, so moving the tongue and lips cuts some bands out of the drone and lets others through, moving formants as vowels do in speech. On the plates below, each key is a mouth shape, not a note.
Rock paintings of the instrument, known only from the Northern Territory, suggest it has been played for at least 1,000–1,500 years; there is no agreed date. Makers find trees already hollowed by termites by tapping the trunk. "Didgeridoo" is a Western word, probably imitating its sound; in Yolngu languages it is the yidaki.
| Length | ~1.2–1.5 m |
|---|---|
| Drone | around D2 (about 70 Hz) on this rack |
| Made from | termite-hollowed eucalyptus |
| Mouthpiece | beeswax |
“The didgeridoo is 40,000 years old, the oldest wind instrument in the world.”
Myth. The rock-art evidence points to around 1,000–1,500 years.
