Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 20/99) - The didjeridoo (also spelled didjeridu, didjiridu and didjerry etc) is considered in some circles as possibly the world's oldest instrument -- it is a wind instrument originally found in Arnhem Land, Northern Australia.

I first heard the eerie haunting sounds of this instrument at the Cave, as played by Corey Elliott. He was always introduced as "Corey, playing the didj." But I didn't have a clue what he was doing.

The instrument in question appeared to be a long tube, nothing more. It turns out Elliott made this one himself out of plastic piping, but the traditional didj is made of wood.

"It's a natural instrument," explains Elliott. "It's hollowed out by termites. They live in the tree and eat out the centre core. Then you break off the pieces."

Traditionally, the sounds of the didjeridoo are sounds of nature -- animal sounds, not just voices, but also such things as wings flapping or the thump of feet on the ground.

One description states: "The Didgeridoo is the sound of Australia; If the earth had a voice, it would be the sound of the Didgeridoo."

Elliot first encountered the instrument at a full moon party in India and first tried playing on a bamboo didjeridoo. When he returned, he tried making one out of Alberta Birch.

"The sound is really low," he says, adding that a didjeridoo normally yields a warm, haunting sound.

"It depends on how you play it and what you're playing with."

They can come in all imaginable lengths and sizes, though the average length is 1.3 metres. Length apparently changes the key of the instrument.

"In Canada and the States it's fairly new, about 10 years. But it's been a big part of the underground scene in Europe from what I understand," Elliott says.

Describing the didj as a wind-driven percussive instrument, Elliott notes that in a modern band "it definitely fills everything in. It helps connect instruments."

An intriguing aspect of the didjeridoo is that like Inuit throat singing, it involves circular breathing, a technique as difficult to explain as it is to do.

Essentially, it involves trapping air in the cheeks and slowly releasing it, and simultaneously breathing in through the nose. With breathing becoming inherent to the making of music, it becomes a continuous experience, no pausing or stopping to take in breath.

"It's emulating a meditation," explains Elliott. "There's definitely a strong spiritual side to it. It flows with your emotions and when you're playing with other people, you're feeding off them."

Elliott eventually wants to find himself a real didjeridoo -- despite the fact that his plastic tubing serves him well enough, and so he plans on heading to Australia come the new year.