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

Date

2003

Authors

Fletcher, Neville H.

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

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.

Description

Keywords

Keywords: Aerodynamics; Oscillations; Resonance; Speech; Vocal tracts; Musical instruments

Citation

Source

Acoustics Australia

Type

Journal article

Book Title

Entity type

Access Statement

License Rights

DOI

Restricted until

2037-12-31

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Acknowledgement of Country

The Australian National University acknowledges, celebrates and pays our respects to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people of the Canberra region and to all First Nations Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and work, and whose cultures are among the oldest continuing cultures in human history.


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