March 2007 Newsletter from didjshop.com

Editorial

Is it just me or is time going faster each year for you as well? It seems the year just started and now it is already March. It is as if life is becoming more and more intense in these exiting times of exponentially growing threats and hopes.
Maybe it is just because I am getting involved in more and more things, like the next EmPower event I have just committed to. Regular readers would remember that our EmPower group organized a festival last September with Aboriginal elders and Dr David Suzuki in our local Kuranda Amphitheatre which turned out to be a wonderful event. That event was about raising awareness of climate change and listening to our scientists and Aboriginal elders. This year's EmPower event will be a six day climate change exhibition and festival starting on 07-07-07 with a strong focus on local effects and what we can do. We were thrilled to learn that Al Gore has called for a global action day on the 7th July 2007 with "Live Earth" concerts in seven continents! It's exciting, but also will mean a lot of work. We do hope to have Aboriginal elders involved again.

Talking about work, we have done lots of recording and are happy to announce that all new concert didjes now have sound files online, so you can go and listen to them now. We are also working on another big batch of didjes.

There are also quite a few new pages on our ever growing website. We are proud to announce the publication of two new research papers. The first one is the didgeridoo physics research done here at the Didjshop and you can read more about that in the 'Didgeridoo Physics' paragraph below. The other is a research paper on the exploitation of Aboriginal culture for economic purposes, for which we were interviewed and which fits perfectly with our new questionnaire comments on Aboriginal authenticity issues which you can also find online now (see below).

There are two monthly winners in this newsletter and the upcoming Worldwide Didgeridoo Meditation is promising to be a loud event with 25 countries already represented as you can read below. Please do add the voice of your didj to this global chorus and please let us know the town and country where you participate, thanks.

We are still enjoying plenty of rain unless many other parts of Australia (see last news item below) and since monsoon is the time of insects, I have added a couple of insect portraits to this newsletter. I have been living here now for over twenty years and still see strange and wonderful new insects every wet season.

Please remember to check out the didj forum and if you have a story about introducing others to the didgeridoo, please consider sharing it with our newsletter readers and email it to us (best including a couple of pictures).

Enjoy the worldwide equinox didj circle and the rest of this newsletter....

Svargo

Didgeridoo Physics

As some of you will remember from previous newsletters, Didjshop.com had a visit in July 2005 by a couple of scientists from the University in NSW. They came to us for some help with some difficult questions: What effect has the inside geometry of a termite hollowed didj on its sound quality and what makes a didjeridu a good or a bad instrument in the judgment of performers?

At the time Professor Joe Wolfe and Guillaume Rey came for a visit and set up their specially designed equipment in our recording studio (see picture on right). They selected 38 of our didjes as well as 11 PVC tubes (as references) and ran sets of frequency measurements on each one of those (after spending a fair bit of time to calibrate their highly sensitive equipment).
We provided them with our usual sound quality and attributes assessments for those didjes - just as we provide for our online didjes. We also contacted five other local experienced didj players who agreed to independently assess these didjes on overall sound quality as well as rate them on backpressure, clarity, resonance, loudness, vocals, overtones and speed.

After a few days of work, the scientists left with their data and ours. It took them a while to crunch the numbers - mainly because they had more pressing work and this was more of a pet project - but they have now come up with some answers.

First and foremost we are very pleased to hear that our sound assessments showed a good agreement with the rankings of the five independent players. The independent players in this study have also verified our claim that our first class didjes are of similar or better sound quality than a PVC pipe. While the positive feedback from thousands of happy customers is a clear endorsement, this more scientific result is a very important verification of the sound quality assessment system we have been using for nearly 15 years. It is certainly the best system in the industry, meaning you can really rely on our sound grading.

And most importantly the scientist have found an explanation for what makes a good didj. The simple answer is that a good didj has strong maxima in the low frequency ranges and weak ones in the 1-2 kilo hertz range. This verifies a discovery I made a few years ago when looking at lots of frequency graphs of didjes with different sound qualities. What I noticed is that the lower quality didjes had stronger magnitudes especially in the higher frequencies. It felt counter intuitive, but considering the previous research by the university of NSW on the effects of the human vocal tract all of it now makes sense.
That research concluded that there is a definite relationship between the maxima in the impedance of the players vocal tract and the impedance of the didj in the 1-2kHz frequency range. This also concurs nicely with the discovery that didjes with high impedance in the 1-2kHz frequencies are not considered to be good instruments by experienced players (what we call second class didjes). This is because they do not allow the player to modulate the sound very much due to their already high impedance. A didj with low impudence at those frequencies allows the player to use their vocal tract to make strong changes to the impedance at those frequencies resulting in more interesting play.
Incidentally this might also account for the fact that a listener seems to judge low quality didjes higher than a player would because the player experiences the limitations of the didj much stronger than the listener who still hears strong formants and does not know that the player cannot modulate them as much as he would like to. This is a very important consideration for all those people buying didjes before they can play themselves. Especially when played by a good player even a very poor quality didj sounds pretty good and certainly better than if you are playing it yourself. This is why we have always recommended that people make themselves a PVC didj and learn on that before they go out and buy a didj in person. Buyer beware!

Let's get back to the study and look at some other interesting results. It became clear that players prefer a bigger bottom diameter and also a stronger flare, both of which are already fairly widely known and accepted in the didgeridoo community. However for some people another result probably comes as a surprise. The study concluded that higher quality instruments tend to have a larger top inside diameter. This is contrary to information spread by some advocates of North East Arnhem Land didjes who tell people that a didj has to be able to be played without a beeswax mouth piece and that if a didj has a natural top diameter that requires a beeswax mouthpiece (eg the top inside diameter is larger than 35mm), then it is somehow not so good. This research project debunks that assumption and even turns it on its head, finding that larger top inside diameters generally make for better sounding didjes.
Last not least the research showed that players prefer a strong and narrow fundamental note, again something that confirms one's intuition.

We at the Didjshop feel honoured to have been involved in this project and are glad that this research has yielded so many results. Please check out the full scientific paper here. We wish to thank the American Institute of Physics, the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales for their permission to publish the entire paper. We also hope to be able to present you with a shorter layman's version in the next month or so courtesy of Professor Joe Wolf, one of the main authors and researchers.

Didgeridoo Meditation

The equinox didj meditation on the 21st March is coming up fast and we wish to ask for lots of support again.
For myself the memory of last years meditation comes back strongly. On the morning of the 21st March last year we had a category 5 cyclone hit land just 80 km south of us with up to 270km/h winds and the house near the beach where we had planned to meet was unusable due to flooding and fallen trees. So we changed to another house in an otherwise noisy Cairns suburb where we had a smaller circle but a wonderful meditation not least because of the power outage which guaranteed the silence to be really silent as neighbouring TV's and radios just didn't work - I still wonder what the people in that suburb thought and felt that night when listening to 45 minutes of didjing instead of the usual TV news :-) . This year we are hoping for a cyclone free event at the bigger house near the beach, so please keep your fingers crossed for us.

And we hope for lots of people all around the earth to join this vast didj circle. We have already received dozens of emails from committed didj players all around the globe and including the many wonderful regular supporters didjes will be played in at least 25 countries: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bermuda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Columbia, Germany, Finland, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malaysia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Turkey, United Kingdom and the USA. Thanks a lot to all of you who have already committed to participating, and the rest of you, please give it a go. Where are the Israelis? and the South Africans? and the Brazilians? and the Taiwanese? - and even if you are in one of the already represented countries, please do let us know of your participation. It's a wonderful experience and just imagine being part of this global circle of didj friends playing and meditating for the earth and nature. It's even better if you can share it with someone. Many participants organize events or invite some friends.

The structure of the meditation is very simple and flexible: people can play didj and/or other instruments or they can tone or hum or you can just listen to some didj music. You make or listen to peaceful music for 45 minutes followed by 15 minutes of silence. And when shall you do this? You simply start when the sun goes down wherever you are on this wonderful planet we all live on. Providing we have enough people participating, together we will create a continuous wave of sound circling the globe which will follow the shadow of the sunset. Cool, isn't it? So please give it a go and become part of this event. For more info see the Worldwide Didgeridoo Meditation page.
Please do let us know where in the world you are participating and please remember to tell us your city and country.

Aboriginal Authenticity

As many of you know we have asked several questions related to Aboriginal authenticity issues in our 2007 win-a-didj questionnaire and we will share some preliminary results with you here.
To our surprise nearly half of respondents are aware that well over 90% of didjes are not made by Aboriginal people. On the one hand it is good to know that so many people are aware fact, on the other it is disappointing that so many people fail to support Aboriginal people when buying didjes.
Slightly less respondents are aware that almost all non-Aboriginal made didjes are sold without stating this fact and that most are sold using Aboriginal symbols or even by outright deception of the customer.

While most people recognize the right of non-Aboriginal people to play and make didjes there is a clear indication that people would really like to see an honest labeling system:
Less than 3% of respondents believe that only Aboriginal people should be allowed to play didgeridoos
26% of respondents believe that only Aboriginal people should be allowed to make didgeridoos.
49% of respondents believe that only Aboriginal people should be allowed to paint Aboriginal designs
66% of respondents believe that non-Aboriginal didgeridoo makers should pay royalties to Aboriginal people or organizations
94% of respondents believe that any didgeridoo sold should clearly state if it is not made by an Australian Aboriginal person.
93% of respondents believe that any painted didgeridoo sold should clearly state if it is painted by an non-Aboriginal person.
(please be aware that these are preliminary results based on only two month of data, but they should give a good indication of trends)

As we also asked everyone how they feel or think about these issues and now have two new comments sections about Didjes made by Non-Aboriginal People and Deception when selling Non-Aboriginal Didjes.
Please do check them out and read for yourself what people think about those issues.

In January I was interviewed by Thomas Sheele from Germany for a research paper on the exploitation of Aboriginal culture for economic purposes. Thomas has since sent me his finished paper, which looks very well written and researched. We thank Thomas for his permission to publish that research on our website and invite all of you to check it out.

In our 2007 Questionnaire we also still ask people for their feedback about Didjshop.com. Here just a handful of the very much appreciated replies:

• Chad from Canada: "The didjshop has the most user-friendly website on the net let alone the best selection of aboriginal made products. I know that every time I buy from the didjshop I'm supporting aboriginal people and doing it with respect."
• Barry Shrimpton from New Zealand: "You have the Best selection the Biggest selection great sound Files heaps of didj related information a great Forum and Brilliant positive feedback !!"
• Peggylynn Terrien from USA: "It is the best most informative site I have been to. the sincerity of the people who run this site is awesome. the spirit of Australia really shines through them. there dedication to the aboriginal people and equality of all people is inspiring."
• Manas Chowdhary from India: "It's a very informative and interactive site. This site taught me so much that I'll log in again and again I'm part of worldwide didgeridoo meditation because of this site I'm glad I'm part of such beautiful reason with so many people. I feel connected."
• Tero from Finland: "Clear simple to use and navigate and the newsletter kicks ass. It has been really educating and worthwhile reading it for the past years that I've been subscribing (something like 5 I think)."
• Gerard School from Netherlands: "Great site informative pure from the heart positive."
• Caleb Long from USA: "Utterly Amazing! seriously you guys have brought a whole new combination of news and great didges for the whole world i understand that there are many imposters i have been fooled before but never again and when i finally make enough to come down under i'd love to meet the wonderful folks who changed the way i play for ever."

Thanks to all visitors and customers for their great comments and feedback. You can read some more Didjshop comments here.

We also still have our customer questionnaire running, so if you ever bought a didj from Didjshop.com, please participate in this customer survey for your chance to win a fantastic Brad Gosam didj valued at over A$1500. We expect to draw this didj around the middle of the year when we hope to have at least 500 entries.

February and March Winners!

Here the winners for both February and March as promised in the last newsletter.
The winner of our A$50 February 2007 shopping voucher is:

Samuel Deberles from Courbevoie in France.
Here is Samuels comment about Didjshop.com: "The grading system is important and the mp3s are necessary to find the sound we look for. There is enough pictures to understand what the didge looks like. Maybe a search function will be appreciated."
We particularly like Samuel's solution to the many fake didjes: "I try to find real stores like Didjshop !!!" ;-)
Congratulations, Samuel, we are looking forward to sending you a free product.

And the winner of the A$50.- March shopping voucher is:
Sabine Roesberry from Heerlen in the Netherlands.
Sabine got her winning entry by ordering a didj for a friend and had this to say about the didj she received: "I like it!! The natural colouring is beautiful. We can see many animals in it. The vibration of the sound is incredible."
Congratulations, Sabine, now you can get your friend something else for free or maybe treat yourself this time :-)

Aboriginal News

Since we did not provide any Aboriginal news in the last newsletter, there are quite a lot of issues o report on:

• Let's start with an update on the top story in our January newsletter, the death in custody of Mulrunji on Palm Island.
  Queensland or even Australian history was made on the 5th of February when senior police sergeant Chris Hurley was formally charged with manslaughter and assault over Mulrunji's death and he will have to stand trial in June. As far as we are aware this is the very first time that a police officer is charged over a death in custody. The officer was given bail (unlike the Palm Islanders who were charged with rioting on the day of Mulrunji's death) and is expected to reappear in court in March.
  The Queensland police union immediately cried foul and a Brisbane police union meeting voted to march on parliament and threatened strike action in support of the charged officer but neither action has eventuated.
  The Queensland government did promise a Crime and Misconduct Commission inquiry to review the monitoring of watch-houses in remote communities to hopefully avoid a repeat of this tragic death.
  
• The Australian Senate inquiry into exploitation of Indigenous artists went to Darwin and Alice Springs to listen to some first hand evidence. The Northern Territory's Arts Minister, Marion Scrymgour used the opportunity to point out that according to her department's information over 1000 fake didgeridoos are being sold in Darwin alone every week.
  In Alice Springs John Oster from DesArt, central Australia's main Aboriginal art body, told the inquiry about Aboriginal art being bought in central Australian remote communities as a way of laundering money obtained through crime. Other evidence to the inquiry detailed payments of drugs or beer in return for art.
  The inquiry is considering whether the problem could be solved by implementing a national system of authenticity certificates.
  In our opinion this would still be unlikely to protect the Aboriginal artists as well as the unwary tourists from exploitation. We strongly believe that labeling of all Aboriginal art and crafts is required, labels that clearly state whenever a product is not made or painted by Aboriginal people.
• A study by the Griffith University into Indigenous land use agreements has found that only about a quarter of them deliver substantial benefits to the Aboriginal communities involved while "about half of the agreements have little by way of substantial benefits", about half are poorly constructed and many override the rights of Aboriginal communities. While pointing out that Aboriginal communities do not have the resources to achieve fair agreements Prof O'Faircheallaigh stated that a quarter of these agreements should never have been signed.
  This seems to be an indication that the Australian government favours the interests of giant mining companies over the interests of it's indigenous citizens.
  
• Further proof for this attitude comes from the resignation of Fred Chaney, who was National Native Title Tribunal director for the last twelve years and before that he was the Indigenous affairs minister in a liberal government.
  "Native Title Law is extremely complex, extremely technical, ... you can spend a lot of money and a lot of effort and get a nil result", Mr Chaney said. If the government's own people are resigning because the system is getting more and more unfair and there are over 600 native title claims in the backlog, it might be time to reconsider and simplify the system. Which is exactly why Fred Chaney calls for "a debate about how we as a community should respond to these things and I think that as a private citizen, I'll be in a better position to contribute." We applaud his sincerity and wish him good luck.
• As most of you would know Australia is in the grip of it's worst drought in living memory. In what must have been a bizarre scene illustrating the severity of the drought, hundreds of wild camels invaded the Aboriginal community of Warakurna near Alice Springs in search of water, destroying toilets, air conditioners and water taps as well as anything else that was in the way of their stampede. Professional hunters had to be called in to kill the animals. Camels are introduced and considered a pest in many desert areas. There are about a million wild camels in Australia and their numbers are growing, presenting a problem that should no longer be ignored.

Keep on didjing until next month and please participate in the Worldwide Didj Circle...

from Svargo and the DIDJSHOP.COM team