Artist gets that 'peaceful feeling' It was love at first sound for Sara Johnson, of Marcellus. It was the first time she had heard the word didgeridoo. It was the first time she had heard that Olivia Newton John song. It was a happy song and it stuck in her mind. "I'm sure I was the only little girl in Parchment, Michigan that felt that way about that song," explained Johnson as she pulled out a long, brightly painted wooden tube. "I think the name of the song was 'I'll Bet You a Kangaroo' and the words say 'someday we will dance to the music of a didgeridoo'. I heard that song and I wanted a didgeridoo. I didn't even know what a didgeridoo was! I just liked the way the word rolled off my tongue." Soon she was painting her original designs on her own homemade didgeridoos. Not stopping there, she offered to custom paint the didgeridoos of others. Soon her work blossomed and she became a featured commission artist for The Didgeridoo Store in California.

Whaledreamers A film produced by Julian Lennon, shot in Byron Bay and on the Great Australian Bight, has been warmly received after a screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Whaledreamers, which is described as an eco-feature, shows the unique relationship between whales and indigenous Aboriginal tribes. The film follows the quest of British writer/director and co-producer Kim Kindersley, who documented his own relationship with Australian Aboriginal tribes living on Australia's southern coastline near the Nullarbor Plain. Lennon and Kindersley also gathered together a group of tribal elders from all over the world, including a New Zealand Maori chief, on a cliff top near Byron Bay where they called upon the whales to surface and communicate - a tradition that is said to date back centuries. "When we started the film, no one anticipated the current surge of interest in climate change, nor the renewed threat to our whales from attempts to re-introduce commercial whaling,'' said executive producer Wayne Young of Youngheart Productions in Byron Bay. The documentary won Best Film at Byron Bay Film Festival as well as two awards at the Monaco Film Festival in 2006 - the Independent Spirit Award and the top prize for Best Film. "Financing came from Lennon personally and various concerned private investors with big hearts,'' said Kindersley. Lennon has declared himself devoted to ecological concerns, which he will explore via other documentary projects. To visit the Whaledreamers home site, click here.

US Bike Show to rev up Australia Producers filming episodes of a top-rating US television series in Australia have given the country's travel industry an unexpected boost, Tourism Minister Fran Bailey says. The cult series American Chopper, which features the world-famous custom motorbike-building family of Paul Teutul snr and Paulie and Mikey Teutul, started filming in Sydney. Three episodes of the new series will be filmed in Australia, during a two-week touring blitz that will take in some of the country's iconic attractions. Russell Crowe has already signed up to work with the stars, who will spend time at his farm in Coffs Harbour as they nut out their Australian-inspired bike design. The show is the highest rating program on the Discovery Channel and attracts more than 300 million viewers in 160 countries. Ms Bailey said the show would provide valuable exposure for Australia's tourism industry, and that it might encourage viewers to book their next holiday Down Under. "Through this Australian Government-supported initiative, millions of prospective tourists will be introduced to the delights of Australia from the back of a chopper bike," she said. "While the Teutuls are more used to handling chopper bikes, we will introduce them to whip cracking, sheep shearing and playing the didgeridoo." The cast and crew have made their way north today to the Great Barrier Reef to film another segment. During their tour they will also take in a cane toad race in Airlie Beach, a sunrise Harley motorcycle tour of Uluru and a visit to King's Creek Station, near Alice Springs.

Voice of Earth Salt Lake City artist and musician Marko Johnson remembers it as if it were yesterday - the day his introduction to a 40,000-year-old Aboriginal wind instrument, the didgeridoo, changed his life. He was making drums when a client from Santa Fe asked, 'What do you know about didgeridoos? "I'll never forget that day,"Johnson says. "It's like you're waiting for something to come along and hit you like a ton of bricks. That's exactly what happened. I was instantly hooked." Native to northern Australian Aboriginal tribes, didgeridoos are known for their harmonic, haunting tones and are often called the "voice of the earth," says Johnson. The sound "reaches you on a cellular level. You can feel it with your body." Tone differs according to its material, inner thickness, taper, or bell at its end and many other variables. Players use a technique called "circular breathing" - releasing air with cheeks and tongue while inhaling through the nose - which allows them to maintain a long note, often using their voices to add harmonic or percussive sounds, occasionally imitating animals. Studies have recently shown circular breathing has an added benefit of "improving daytime sleepiness in patients with moderate snoring and obstructive sleep apnea," according to the British Medical Journal. Didgeridoo music "isn't necessarily the kind of music you tap your foot to," admits Grahm Doe of the Didgeridoo Store of Oakhurst, Calif. "On the contemporary side, people have been infusing the didgeridoo into every kind of music - jazz, classic guitar and rock." Artists like Xavier Rudd, Stephen Kent and Aboriginal performer William Barton are popular, Doe says most didgeridoo music is not generally sold in mass-distribution chains, but by traveling to events such as the JT Didgefest, Indidjinus, Swizzeridoo and other gatherings. Johnson uses his creative juices designing didgeridoos. In addition to being the only person in the world who makes didgeridoos with leather, Johnson is well-known throughout the didgeridoo community as an active inventor. He holds a U.S. patent for his 1995 creation of the didjbox - a small box with three holes at the top with 11 baffles or sound chambers that essentially packs 5 feet of tubing into a small wooden box. "When people start playing didgeridoos, they get pretty obsessed by them," Johnson says.

Kept awake at night by a snoring partner? The answer to your woes could lie -- believe it or not -- with the Australian didgeridoo. LONDON (Reuters) - Researchers in Switzerland examined 25 patients who suffered from snoring and moderate obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, both common sleep disorders. Half the group were given daily lessons in playing the didgeridoo, a wind instrument about 1.5 meters (yards) long which originated in northern Australia and is traditionally made from the trunk of a tree hollowed out by termites. The study, published in the British Medical Journal's online edition on Friday, found that those who played the unusual instrument over a four-month trial period saw a significant improvement in their daytime sleepiness and apnea. Their partners also reported less disturbance from snoring. The researchers said training the upper airways through the breathing techniques required to play the didgeridoo was behind the improvement. "Our results may give hope to many people with moderate obstructive sleep apnea syndrome and snoring, as well as their partners," the report's authors said.

Some of our favorite didgeridoo related You Tube videos! Great Day JT Didge Fest Performance The Husky Howl Jeremy Donovan playing Didgeridoo The car that Lewis Burns painted up for Chad Butler Doonooch Dancers from JT Didge Fest 06' Per & Eileen Hultquist Busking in Colorado

Didgeridoo Challenge in the Amazing Race Arriving at termite mounds in Australia, teams opened their clues to find a Detour. In this Detour, Teams had to choose between Wet and Dry. In Wet, Teams would drive six miles to a roadside park to hike and swim down a daunting one-mile course down a jungle river inhabited by large spiders and poison plants. In Dry, Teams would drive to a natural rock formation known as the Lost City. Once there, they would choose a didgeridoo and, following the sound of music in the air, locate a nearby Aboriginal. They would teach each team member how to play the drone. Once each team member played the drone successfully, they would receive their next clue!

Wicked Tinkers Los Angeles City Beat, By MICK FARREN. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson first brought L.A. group the Wicked Tinkers to my attention late last month. Ferguson’s father had died, and – instead of going to a rerun – he decided, in one of the most courageous pieces of television I have seen in years, to hold an on-air wake. His monologue/eulogy was moving, and then Dr. Drew Pinsky talked about the process of grieving. This turned things a tad Oprah, and thus, when Ferguson brought on four wild heavyweights in kilts and tank tops, I was superbly ready for them. During his build-up for the Wicked Tinkers, Ferguson talked about giving his father a tribal sendoff, but just how tribal was only revealed when the Tinkers appeared, beating the living hell out of tapan, bodhran, and marching snare drum, while pipes skirled, a didgeridoo wobbled, and a Bronze Age Irish horn bellowed, like the voice of some H.P. Lovecraft aquatic leviathan. As they laid into their wholly authentic instruments with a good-natured fury – and a noticeable undertow of Bo Diddley that caused critic Dean Bonzani to liken them to a Celtic Clash – they could not be dismissed as a single-malt goof. The use of prehistoric and aboriginal horns, plus the high, punk-primal energy, do tend to make diehard traditionalists blanch, but I agree with Shaw when he says it’s a “way to express the feeling of the ancient in the modern world.” Wicked Tinkers have been through a number of horn players down its decade of existence, but have now fixed on Jay Atwood, who appeared on The Late Late Show. WickedTinkers.com.

Sheikh taught the didgeridoo Nathaniel Coburn giving an Iraqi tribal leader some hints on playing the didgeridoo. Nathaniel Coburn only joined the Army 18 months ago and he is already giving didgeridoo lessons to an Iraqi sheikh. It's long way from Kununurra where his mother, brother and stepfather still live. "I grew up in Kununurra, and kind of picked up the way of playing the didgeridoo from friends," said Nathaniel, who is now a trooper in the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. It was an unexpected talent that was given full rein when Nathaniel and his commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Peter Short were invited to afternoon tea with a significant Iraqi tribal leader in the Al Muthanna province in southern Iraq. After talking about security and reconstruction, the sheikh was presented with the didgeridoo and Nathaniel took on the job of demonstrating it. "I haven't fully mastered the technique of circular breathing, but I can give a fairly good rendition," he said. Nathaniel is in Iraq as part of the Australian Al Muthanna Task Group, which provides a secure environment for the Japanese engineers in their humanitarian rebuilding projects, and helps to train the new Iraqi army.

Was the didgeridoo a bit of Irish to the Aborigines? By Daniel Dasey - The Sun-Herald. Faith and begorrah! The linguistic origins of Australia's most iconic musical instrument, the didgeridoo, have been called into question with an academic claiming the name is of Irish derivation rather than from an Aboriginal dialect. Flinders University PhD student Dymphna Lonergan suggests the term may have its roots in an old Irish and Scottish expression meaning black trumpeter or horn blower. She also suspects an Irish influence on other Australian terms. "The response has been amazing," Ms Lonergan said. "When I go through my theory people are generally accepting and find it convincing." Ms Lonergan, whose PhD is on the history of the Irish language in Australia, said she investigated the linguistic origins of a host of terms proposed by a colleague in Sydney. While most proved unconnected to Gaelic, her suspicions were aroused by didgeridoo. She found the first appearance of the word didgeridoo in Australian dictionaries occurred in 1919 in the Australian National Dictionary. The word is not in any Aboriginal dialect and linguists have long suspected the word is imitative of the sound made by a didgeridoo. But Ms Lonergan said an experiment she conducted asking subjects to make the sound of the instrument yielded words full of vowels starting with the letter "b" or "m". No subjects made the sound didgeridoo. She instead believes the word is derived from the Irish and Scottish Gaelic term dudaire, which is is pronounced dooderreh or doodjerra and means a pipe smoker, a nosey person or a trumpeter or horn blower. The Gaelic term for black is dubh, pronounced duv or do. In combination, the terms produce doodjerra doo. Ms Lonergan said she suspected early immigrants drew on their native tongues to describe their new country and believes other common Australian terms may also have Gaelic origins.

Bronze Age Horns of Ireland One of the most exciting musical discoveries of the 20th Century was the reawakening of the Bronze Age Horns of Ireland. An ancient mystery had been solved. For hundreds of years attempts were made to play each of the 104 horns that survived from the Irish Bronze Age. All were met with failure due to the large "single cavity" mouthpiece which is a feature of the bronze horn family. The breakthrough came in the 1970's when Professor Peter Holmes of London compared them to existing ethnic instruments including the triton conch, African animal horns and the Australian didgeridoo. His conclusions were taken up by Simon O'Dwyer in Ireland who began to make replicas and learn how to play them.

Dust Echoes Dust Echoes is one way that we are bringing everyone back to the same campfire - black and white. We are telling our stories to you in a way you can understand, to help you see, hear and know. And we are telling these stories to ourselves, so that we will always remember, with pride, who we are... Click here to see the stories.

Unraveling the Secret of the Didgeridoo —David Braun - The didgeridoo (or yidaki in the Yolngu language of northern Australia), like the one being played in this National Geographic video, is traditionally made from a small tree trunk hollowed out by termites. It usually plays only one note, but the most skilled players manage to produce a great variety of timbres and rhythms as they alter their tongue position and mouth shape. Now Australian physicists say they have discovered the secret of skilled didgeridoo players. What separates an expert from a novice is the opening and closing of the glottis, the part of the windpipe that contains the vocal cords. A skilled player subconsciously reduces the opening of the glottis to set up strong resonances at different frequencies inside the mouth. The vocal cords mimic the positions used when producing vowel sounds, explain Joe Wolfe and his colleagues from the University of New South Wales in this week's journal Nature. If the vocal tract remains open, as in normal breathing, the lungs absorb much of the sound. The researchers suggest that didgeridoo playing may be similar to playing a brass instrument, in which changes to the vocal tract can also influence the quality of the sound produced.

Sculthorpe pays homage to the didgeridoo By MARTIN STEVENSON. So impressed was iconic Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe with Queensland didgeridoo player William Barton's talents, that Sculthorpe rewrote two key works, Earth Cry and Requiem, for Barton. Barton subsequently performed the works with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane and Tokyo. Considered one of Australia's leading didgeridoo players, Barton was deeply moved by the gesture by Sculthorpe, the Launceston-born composer who now lives in Sydney. "Peter said he could have completed the work six weeks earlier had it not been for me," an amused Barton said yesterday. On Saturday in Launceston's City Park, Barton will perform with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra a new work by Sculthorpe, Beethoven Variations For Didgeridoo And Orchestra. Born in Mount Isa, Barton was taught to play the instrument from an early age by his uncle, a Wannyi, Lardi and Kalkadunga tribe elder from north-west Queensland. In 1997, aged 17, Barton made his classical debut with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. Now based in Brisbane, Barton is currently artist-in-residence with the Queensland orchestra. He has toured Queensland schools with his blend of traditional didgeridoo fused with classical music, contemporary rock and fusion-techno.