Australian Aboriginal musical instruments: The didjeridu, the bullroarer and the gumleaf

Neville H. Fletcher*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    4 Citations (Scopus)

    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.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)51-54
    Number of pages4
    JournalAcoustics Australia
    Volume31
    Issue number2
    Publication statusPublished - Aug 2003

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