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5.1 Didjeridu activities (Page 2/4)

Materials and preparation

You will need hollow tubes made of a relatively hard material, with a diameter around one and a half or two inches. (The smaller diameter will be easier for young or small students. The larger diameter should be able to produce a greater variety of sounds.) You should get more interesting results for the acoustics activity if you have instruments in a variety of lengths and/or a variety of diameters and materials. PVC piping works well and is easy to obtain. If you are looking to make the project easy for the students, some hardware/home-repair stores will cut it to the desired lengths for you. Of course, if you have hollowed wood or bamboo tubes of the right size, that would also work well. Softer materials, such as cardboard tubes, are easy for very young children to work with, but will not really give a characteristic didjeridu sound. (Harder materials have much better resonance .)
If your tubes are not cut to the right lengths, you'll need an appropriate tool for cutting them.
You may need some fine sandpaper or steel wool to smooth down ends for the mouthpiece, or to roughen the sides of the PVC piping so that paint will stick to it.
The mouthpiece is usually made from beeswax (which you can get at a good craft store), which will need to be warmed so that it can be shaped. If you don't want to mess with beeswax, a few layers of duct tape can make a playable mouthpiece.
For traditional-style decoration, choose a craft paint that will adhere to the material you are working with. Make sure you have all the necessary materials for applying the paint and cleaning up. Plan ahead for painting and for storing the instruments while they dry. Will the students paint only one side of the instrument at a time, with drying time in between? Do you have racks that could hold the instruments up while they are being decorated and drying? If you don't want to bother with paints, consider buying masking tape in a variety of colors and letting the students use it to decorate their instruments.
If you are also making clapsticks, you'll need relatively short lengths of hard wood sticks or dowel. You may also want to gather the materials necessary to smooth the wood for painting, and to taper the ends of the sticks to give a traditional bilma shape.
Review the information at Didjeridu , Lessons from Aboriginal Storytelling , Didjeridu Story from Far Northeast Arnhem Land , Manikay.com , iDIDJ Australia , and/or your favorite sources, and prepare a short, age-appropriate informational presentation to give to the class. If possible, include photos, video or sound clips in your presentation. Emphasize whichever aspects of the instrument fit in with your other studies, but at the very least you should probably tell them where the instrument comes from and that it is played in the same way as more familiar instruments such as trumpet and trombone .

Procedure

Give your presentation introducing the students to the didjeridu.
If the tubes are not already cut to a good length, assist and supervise the students in cutting lengths for their instruments. Remember that a variety of lengths should give more interesting results when exploring the acoustics of the instrument. If students cannot do this step safely, do it for them.
Have the students use sandpaper and steel wool to both smooth down any rough or splintery ends and to roughen any surfaces that are too smooth to paint.
Have the students apply the mouthpiece to one end. This can be, simply, enough layers of duct tape to make the rim feel soft and fit the face well. A beeswax mouthpiece is more authentic. Soften the wax: put it in hot water, or in a patch of hot sunshine, or microwave it for a very short time, or simply roll it between two warm hands until it is pliable. Shape it into a log that is thicker than the instrument rim and about the same length as the rim circumference, and press it gently around the edge of the rim, continuing to shape it so that it will make a good seal with the player's lips (i.e. no air will escape from in between the player's lips and the mouthpiece). Before you put the materials away, make sure that each student has a playable mouthpiece by having them blow through it. With lips inside the mouthpiece, not around the rim, and not pressing too hard, the student should be able to blow through the tube with no air leaking from the mouthpiece end. If the fit is not good, you may need to reshape the mouthpiece, or add more wax (or duct tape).
Tell the students that real didjeridus are made of wood and are often painted with designs and varnished. If it fits your lesson plan, have the students decorate their instruments. If you are emphasizing the art aspect of this activity, talk about Aboriginal painting traditions and/or show photos of several painted didjeridus. In order to respect Aboriginal traditions (please read about art ownership traditions ), encourage the students to come up with their own designs rather than copying Australian ones. Using colors and designs that are meaningful to them personally, or to a group that they belong to (family, friends, school, sports team, etc.) is actually more in keeping with the spirit of Aboriginal traditions than is copying designs from an unfamiliar cultures.

Read also:

OpenStax, Musical travels for children. OpenStax CNX. Jan 06, 2010 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10221/1.11

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