Australian Aboriginal Musical Instruments: The Didjeridu, The Bullroarer and the Gumleaf

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Authors

Fletcher, Neville H.

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Australian Acoustical Society

Abstract

The Australian Aboriginal people developed three musical instruments - the didjeridu, the bullroarer, and the gum-leaf. Most well known is the didjeridu, a simple wooden tube blown with the lips like a trumpet, which gains its sonic flexibility from controllable resonances of the player's vocal tract. The bull-roarer is a simple wooden slat whirled in a circle on the end of a cord so that it rotates about its axis and produces a pulsating low-pitched roar. The gum-leaf, as the name suggests, is a tree leaf, held against the lips and blown so as to act as a vibrating valve with "blown-open" configuration. Originally intended to imitate bird-calls, the gum-leaf can also be used to play tunes.

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Source

Acoustics Australia

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Restricted until

2037-12-31

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