Didgeridoos and don'ts

By BETTY SMITH
Press special writer

TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS May 13, 2008 03:22 pm

— Loose lips can sink ships, but they’re desirable when doing the didgeridoo.
That was the first lesson about a dozen aspiring didgeridoo players learned from musician and meditator Phil Jones Monday night during a workshop at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tahlequah.
Jones, a native of Australia, discussed the origin of the aborigines’ instrument and its uses today as a tool for meditation and healing, as well as a musical instrument. He just relocated to Sparrowhawk Village, which he will use as his base while traveling nationwide, giving seminars on the didgeridoo.
The students ranged from a physician to a band director, to several people curious about the ancient aboriginal art.
Jones sees the didgeridoo as an instrument of empowerment.
“The didgeridoo is a duster that erases the monkey chatter and the mind clutter from the consciousness at an accelerated pace,” he said. “I can reinvent myself. I can recreate my personality to be more of what I want to be today. I can reprogram my mind. My inner self is connected to the supreme self. I am one with it.”
Before the workshop, participants examined a group of didgeridoos Jones furnished. Most were traditional, handmade of eucalyptus and painted with symbols such as fish and turtles. Three were a simpler plastic, which Jones described as for the “didgeridoo challenged.”
“Aren’t they beautiful? Look at these things – they’re works of art,” Iris Tate said.
Tate, a healer, wants to use the didgeridoo to access the higher power to work through her to heal people.
Jones told them there are more than 250 varieties of eucalyptus in Australia, and 10 are suitable for making didgeridoos. White ants and termites hollow out the sticks, which are selected by aborigines during trips to the bush. It takes four to six weeks to make one. The tradition dates back 10,000 years.
The workshop consisted of four phases. In the first, students learned breathing, how to make basic sounds, and meditating with the aid of the didgeridoo.
“I have found in my experience that when people get behind the wheel of a didgeridoo, they turn into maniacs,” Jones joked.
He told them to use loose lips and a gentle breath, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.
“This is somewhat of a zen thing,” he said. “If you blow it really hard to make a sound, it will likely get away from you. If you relax, it will embrace you.”
Some of the aspiring players’ first tries resembled the sound of a child blowing through a cardboard tube taken from a roll of paper towels. But as they practiced the breathing techniques and progressed, the didgeridoos began emanating the low, vibrant sounds for which they are famous.
Jones told them the breathing techniques used in playing the didgeridoo allow people to oxygenate at a high level without hyperventilating.
“I believe they are designed to make meditation easier,” he said. “As the mind begins to relax, so the body relaxes, and we start with the breath first. There’s no right or wrong here. Just breathe spiritually.”
The instrument has physical as well as spiritual benefits, he said.
Jones said medical research has shown playing the didgeridoo has significantly reduced sleep apnea and snoring. It provides valuable cardiopulmonary exercise and lowers blood pressure, and stimulates the vagus nerve and the pituitary gland.
One doctor told Jones he would advise his patients to take up the didgeridoo, and see if insurance would cover it.
“I had a vision of people going into Walgreen’s and getting a didgeridoo,” Jones said.
He said the whole purpose of playing the didgeridoo is mastering the mind. The player masters the breath, and the instrument produces primordial sound and harmonic resonance.
“With every breath we breathe, we breathe the essence of the divine,” he said. “The sound of the instrument is the sound of the om. The om is the sound of the voice of God.”
He said playing the didgeridoo for five minutes in the morning prepares a person for spiritual work, creative work or whatever needs to be done.
Three people brought their own didgeridoos to the workshop.
Aaron Fram, band director at Vian, has had his didgeridoo about 18 months. He is self-taught, and picked up a lot of pointers at the workshop. He said breathing exercises are helpful, as evidenced by his fifth-grade band students. When he leads them through breathing exercises at the beginning of a class, he has their attention.
Jones then led the students through circular breathing, in which they can achieve a constant sound on their didgeridoos. He had them fill their cheeks with air and blow up balloons while breathing, then transfer that action to the didgeridoo.
“If you do what I tell you, you’ll get it,” he said.
After some practice, Tate did.
“I love this. I’ve been fascinated with the didgeridoo for many years, but I didn’t think I could do it,” she said, adding that she had an instinctive flash that this was what she was supposed to do at this time.
David Hilligoss said the circular breathing is natural – something babies do.
Hilligoss, also known as “Doctor Cricket,” is a storyteller who has used the didgeridoo in his work with elementary students. Now he hopes to expand his repertoire to more than one note, and was doing so by the end of the workshop.
“I’ve been carrying this thing around with me for five years. I have used it and demonstrated it with one note in the programs I do in grade schools,” he said. “This is the first opportunity I have really had to have anyone who know anything about it to explain to me how to do the circular breathing.”
It’s taking practice, Kelly Anquoe said.
“I’m trying to be more conscious of it as I breathe. I’m trying to keep track of all these things at once,” he said.
Jones told them they were doing a great job.
“You’ve got it now,” Jones said, pointing to Tate, then added, “and he’s got it,” pointing to Fram.”
During the third part of the workshop, Jones taught them how to make different sounds up and down the scale, and during the fourth part, he taught them how to project their voices through the didgeridoo. They used the sounds of a bush dove and a kookaburra, classical aboriginal didgeridoo sounds.
“Keep in mind this is a crash course. If you decide to get one, you will bond with your instrument,” he said.
He demonstrated how the didgeridoo can be used to accompany various musical styles, including classical and rap. Anquoe asked him if he had ever used it with powwow music.
“Let’s jam sometime,” Anquoe invited.
“I’d love to,” Jones said.
The finale of the workshop was a “primal scream” free-for-all, in which students demonstrated what they had learned so far and did a little improvising. A dozen didgeridoos resonated through the sanctuary.
Anquoe produced perhaps the most unusual sound – his rendition of “Amazing Grace” in Cherokee.
And where but in Tahlequah would you find a Kiowa-Cherokee playing and singing a hymn on an instrument from halfway around the world?
At Sparrowhawk, the didgeridoo has landed.

Get involved
For more information about the didgeridoo, its use in healing and meditation, didgeridoo lessons or CDs, contact Phil Jones at 505-690-3341, or visit his Web site, philjonesmusic.com.

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