Core group keeps didgeridoos humming in Sonoma County
The sound of the didgeridoo has been described as the instrumental manifestation of the mystical mantra, “Om,” a powerful resonance that grabs hold of you, passes through you but doesn’t let go.
The unique aboriginal Australian instrument captured the attention of musicians in the early to mid-1990s as part of their fascination with world music. Its mainstream popularity peaked sometime after the beginning of the millennium, then fell victim to the stratospheric popularity of the ukulele.
Thanks to a hardy core of local musicians, the ancient wind instrument is making somewhat of a comeback in the North Coast. They continue to share their fascination with it through their music, teachings and bastard inventions.
New class
In a rectangular room at the Arlene Francis Center in Santa Rosa, where sounds bounce mercilessly off the walls of brick, wood and glass, Zackary Miller puts his lips together and does a prodigious raspberry, one that would shame a toddler.
It sounds a little like any raspberry you’ve ever heard, but powerful. If you were standing close, you would almost certainly catch a light spray.
Then put a long hollow piece of wood at the source, and with a little practice you’re generating a sound that is both primitive and modern - a hypnotic tone that can share as easily with synthesizers, electronic drums and effects-laden guitars as it can with ethnic drums.
Miller instructs the half dozen students in his didge class through a round of raspberries. Later he turns to what he calls the “quiet and loud.”
“Everybody do the quiet and loud with me,” he says. A deep, resonant droning sound follows, like a room full of chanting Buddhist monks or a Sonoma County yoga class, for that matter.
BBbbbuuuaoo.
BBbbbuuuuaaaauuu.
BBBBBBuuuu.
BBBBBBbbBBBBa.
“The goal in circular breathing is ultimately to keep a continuous note,” Miller says. “So, when you’re exhaling and blowing the note - BBbbuuaaAA - you ultimately want to catch air in your mouth and use that air to keep the note going. Push it out with your tongue and your cheeks, and while you’re doing that, you inhale.”
Miller, a manager at the downtown Santa Rosa music store Bananas at Large, said he recently launched his didgeridoo class as a way to “encourage community around the instrument.” The free class for beginning and intermediate players meets every Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Arlene Francis Center.
“A few years ago, there was a bit more momentum in that community,” said Miller, who started playing the didge about 20 years ago. The North Coast has a handful of really good players, he said, and many more who can be classified as beginner or intermediate.
Rio Olesky, the well-known west county astrologer, is among the area’s best.
Olesky, who lives in Forestville, also started playing the instrument in the mid-1990s and still plays it as a form of musical meditation.
Music has always been a part of hi s life, he said. He played guitar and drums, but nothing resonated with him the way the didgeridoo did.
“This just grabbed me, won’t let me go,” he said. “It’s the sound of the Earth, it’s the ‘Om’ sound. So there’s the drone of the instrument, the Om sound. With that you can play with rhythms forever.”
1,500-2,000 years old
The didgeridoo, or yidaki as it is know to the aborigines of Northern Australia, is one of the oldest musical instruments. Some claim it has been around for 40,000 years and is as old as aboriginal culture itself.
However, geological dating of rock art depicting aboriginal people using the instrument puts the age closer to 1,500 to 2,000 years.
Miller’s personal didgeridoo is the real thing, made in Australia of eucalyptus wood. It’s sound is as earthy as the process involved in making it.
Traditionally, a host of termites hollow out a young eucalyptus tree. The hollowed tree trunk is checked for the right timbre and then cut down. The cut tree will often will re-shoot and grow again.
“They wait for the one that has the right sound,” Olesky said of aboriginal people.
The thickness of the hollowed out trees ranges from a quarter to half an inch, he said, producing instruments that come in different heights and a variety of musical keys, with the most popular being e or d.
Some are straight and some flare out like a horn at the end. To create a better seal, a rim of wax is placed on the side of the instrument where the musician blows into it.
Didgeridoos also can be made PVC piping, glass, agave shoots, bamboo and other materials.
Olesky has a collection of 17 at his home in Forestville. He says there is something primal and essential about playing them.
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