A newsletter for Didjeridu players           Nov.       96                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
                                              Volume # 002 Issue 5
 Pitch...

  In  the  last issue,  we explored  some of  the techniques  of enhancing  the
harmonics  of the  didjeridu. Harmonics,  profoundly effect  the perception  of
pitch. I recently did a  survey of  the pitches  used by  didjeridu players  on
recorded music. The study  involved identifying  the pitch  of didjeridus  from
sampled tacks of contemporary music and field recordings. Before embarking on a
brief discussion of my findings, it might be useful to define a couple of terms
which I think are often misunderstood. The first term is "Aboriginal Music" and
I define it as music made by Aborigines. Next,  "Traditional Aboriginal Music"
is  music  which  has  no  non-aboriginal  influence.  My survey looked at
"Traditional" music on field recordings as well as contemporary music which was
performed by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal musicians.
  There are a couple of things about traditional music which should  be
noted which are extremely relevant to  the consideration  of the  pitch of  the
instrument. The most important of which is that traditional Aboriginal music is
primarily a vocal art centered on the songs. Idiophones (clapsticks, rasps  and
seed rattles) and the aerophone  (didjeridu) provide  accompaniment to  singing
and dancing but there is no truly melodic instrument to compete with the  vocal
melody or obscure the words. Because the traditional didjeridu  has only  minor
alterations (stripping the bark, applying a beeswax mouth  piece and  painting)
and  additionally  varied in  length from  1 to  1.5 meters  they are  somewhat
limited in the range of pitches they can produce (assuming a 3.5 cm mouth piece
and a maximum of 7.5 cm bell the range would be generally D flat to G).
 Survey of didj music ...


  99 tracks were sampled from 10 releases of contemporary commercial didjeridu
recording artists and 94 tracks were sampled from 7  field recordings obtained
over the past few decades. Contemporary  artist include  Alastair Black, David
Hudson, Alan Dargin, Inlakesh, Adam Plack, Stephen Kent and Graham Wiggins. The
lowest pitch recorded was an A and the highest a G. The biggest range was found
amongst the contemporary players witch featured every pitch  with the  observed
ranges with the most popular being the  key of  D# (24%).  This dispersion  was
contrasted by the narrow range of  pitches found in  field recordings.  Amongst
the field, the most popular key was E (50%) with F# following a distant  second
(16%). Amongst the field recordings, the lowest didjeridu was a C (<2%) and the
highest an F# (>13%). The lowest didjeridu  noted with  the contemporary  group
was an A and the highest a G.

What's in Store...


  Finally, the Alice Molye collection of  "Songs from  the Norhern  Territories
has been re-released on CD.  The original 5 volume cassette tape has  been  the
standard ethnographic series spanning nearly all of the northern territories in
scope. As an example of the value of owning this collection, may I site  volume
3 tracks 7 and 8. These are solo demonstrations of the didjeridu  performed  by
a young man named Djalalinba on track 7 and an older man named Mawalan on track
eight. On tape, to  locate this   'contest'  would require  positioning of  the
tape to approximately the middle of side two and  then searching  forward.
 Every  disk comes with extensive liner notes which where revised from the 
earlier companion booklet to the tapes. Gone are the annoying "track  two 
follows"  announcements between tracks of the cassette series. 
  Skipping   ahead   now  to track  12, you can appreciate  a  recording  of  a
yolngu song  you  may recognize  from Yothu  Yindi's Tribal  Voice album.  This
particular 'comic' version is thought  to originate  during World War II  after
a group  of yolngu people saw a Disney film at an air base. Donald Duck is  the
subject  of the associated dance. 
 In  this new  release, the  reference to  Yothu Yindi  is documented in the 
foot notes as "an Aboriginal rock group from Yirrkala.  
  There are five disks in all : disk one contains recordings from Western 
Arnhem Land, disk two is from Eastern Arnhem Land, disk three from Yirrkala 
and  North Eastern Arnhem Land, disk four from North Eastern  Arnhemland 
including  Groote Eylandt and disk five contains material from Southern Arnhem 
Land plus material from Bathurst and Melville Islands 

  Didjeri  News is  published by  Australian Originals   28  SW 1st,  Portland,
Oregon  97204 (503) 228 4484