Despite the fact that the making of didgeridoo has gone to the side track, I have been dealing with professional production of these instruments for about 15 years, my goal is to make the instrument as carefully as possible, to obtain the most harmonious shape of the tube and the most careful finish of the internal surfaces, which translates into an exceptionally clean main tone, without harmonic vibrations.
I use trunks of young trees seasoned about 5 years, hard species - robinia, ash, oak, fruit trees, hornbeam and maple. They are cut on a band saw with fine toothing, the gouged halves have a perfectly smooth surface and even wall thickness, they are glued with an elastic epoxy compound. Didgeridoo is finished with a wooden mouthpiece profiled from the trunk. Impregnated from the inside with a natural agent of my own prescription based on beeswax, from the outside resistant varnish.
The price of the ordered instrument depends on the length and width of the so-called bell at the outlet, as well as from the type of wood and any additional decorations, e.g. painted / carved motifs, inlays of semi-precious stones or metal elements. As an indication, the prices of didgeridoo with natural wood finish without "embellishments" are as follows:
Didgeridoo is an ethnic Aboriginal wind instrument from Australia, musicologists classify it as an aerophone and, according to many sources, it is the oldest musical instrument in the world. English, didgeridoo comes from the Irish dudaire dubh, which means "black trumpet man", and among aborigines who are black, the most common name is yirdaki, also commonly used outside of Australia interchangeably with didgeridoo. It is simply a wooden hollow tube, narrower on one side and wider on the other, traditionally made from Eucalyptus hollowed out from the inside by termites. Nowadays, however, didgeridoo is made of branches or younger trunks of any tree species, giving instruments different resonance properties depending on the structure of a given wood species.
The technique of playing here is different than on classical wind instruments, or Polish folk wooden counterparts of didgeridoo and instead of blowing, the mouth together with the pipe must be introduced into characteristic resonating vibrations, which are then modulated in a different way, while playing, taking a breath from time to time using the so-called circular breathing technique. The sound itself could somehow be compared to the buzzing of a very large bee.
Didgeridoo can be made of any species of tree, even bamboo, from the stems of angelica and borsch, and each will somehow play, there are different opinions about the suitability of this or that raw material for the pipe, I will present mine and I would say that rather generally accepted .
The buzzing sound of the instrument comes from the fact that the wood resonates under the influence of very fast vibrating impacts of the playing lips and it is the structure of the material that largely determines what sound will be obtained. The harder the wood, the cleaner and clearer the main sound and the less the so-called harmonic vibrations that damp it. In practice, this means that with hardwood didge you can have more room for maneuver, more, play cleaner and more precisely, i.e. even minimal refined modulations are clearly audible, where with soft wood often the modulation difference is not heard precisely through harmonic vibrations. Didge made of soft wood has a soft, calm and muffled sound, which suits to some people even better and is often used for meditation instruments, but for professional playing at home, concert or studio, harder species are better, in my opinion species. Well, cheap bamboo or angelica tubes are not staggering with the depth of sound and are good only for starters and only for people who firs want to try, learn to play, without spending more cash.
That is why I use hardwood for didgeridoo instruments, e.g. robinia, ash, oak, walnut, fruit trees, hornbeam and maple. Trunks of young trees, seasoned for about 5 years, are processed. First the trunk is debarked, profiled to the right shape, and split lengthwise into halves with a band saw, I remove the wood from each of them and polish the interior so that the walls have an even thickness. Then I secure the inside of the halves with a special agent of my own recipe based on beeswax, glue the halves with epoxy resin based on an extremely flexible hardener. The bond is very resistant to moisture, chemistry and biological agents. In the end, didgeridoo is carefully smoothened and finished depending on the specific order e.g. stained, painted a motif with acrylic, embedding non-ferrous metals or semi-precious stones and finally covered with a varnish layer resistant to damage and biological-chemical factors.
Stolarstwo Samorodne
