How to play the didgeridoo

From our origins in South Africa just 35,000 years we migrated to East Africa and then India and Australia reaching it 30,000 years ago and this is just about the oldest musical instruments and still sounds the best . Also is it just me , or is it something to do with brain resonance , but I find the Indian musical instruments - tabla , sitar , veena much superior sounding to drums , guitar , and other western instruments . In fact they send the body vibrating and are more in tune with our natural body frequencies . What say you , uncle ?

Physicists learn secrets of didgeridoo Michael Hopkin Acoustics show how players produce wide variety of sounds. Different sounds are made by moving the glottis, the part of the windpipe that contains the vocal cords.

© Kate Callas Australian researchers have delved deep into the world of acoustic physics to unravel part of their country's indigenous heritage: the ancient art of playing the didgeridoo. The secret of an accomplished performance, they have discovered, is all in the voice box.

The didgeridoo, an aboriginal instrument also called the yidaki, is traditionally made from a tree trunk hollowed out by termites. It can produce a huge variety of different timbres, despite it usually playing only a single note. This is because a send player alters the acoustics inside the mouth to set up strong resonances at certain frequencies.

This alteration is done by moving the glottis, the part of the windpipe that contains the vocal cords, report researchers led by Joe Wolfe of the University of New South Wales in Sydney. This enhances certain frequencies while inhibiting others, much as different vowel sounds are produced by adopting different positions for the tongue and vocal cords.

It's easy to make a basic sound. But learning these strong formants takes a while.

Joe Wolfe University of New South Wales, Sydney Send didgeridoo players do this subconsciously, Wolfe says: "None of the players to whom we've spoken is aware of it." But the creation of these characteristic frequency bands, called formants, is what gives their playing expression and variety.