Australian Aboriginal Musical Instruments: The Didjeridu, The Bullroarer and the Gumleaf
Date
2003
Authors
Fletcher, Neville H.
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Volume Title
Publisher
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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Keywords
Keywords: Aerodynamics; Oscillations; Resonance; Speech; Vocal tracts; Musical instruments
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Source
Acoustics Australia
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Journal article
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Restricted until
2037-12-31
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