This is a list of notable musicians who play the Australian instrument known as the didgeridoo .
Aboriginal Australian players from traditional didgeridoo regions (according to A. P. Elkin, in 1938 the instrument was "only known in eastern Kimberley and the northern third of the Northern Territory", [1] ) belonging to clans that claim the didgeridoo as part of their ancient ancestral heritage: [2]
Aboriginal players from non-traditional didgeridoo regions:
Non-Aboriginal Australian didgeridoo players:
A number of didgeridoo players are jazz or classical trombonists (or, alternatively, players of other wind or string instruments) who double on the didgeridoo, using it as a secondary instrument. These include:
The didgeridoo is a wind instrument, played with vibrating lips to produce a continuous drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing. The didgeridoo was developed by Aboriginal peoples of northern Australia at least 1,000 years ago, and is now in use around the world, though still most strongly associated with Indigenous Australian music. In the Yolŋu languages of the indigenous people of northeast Arnhem Land the name for the instrument is the yiḏaki, or more recently by some, mandapul. In the Bininj Kunwok language of West Arnhem Land it is known as mako.
David Charles Hudson is an Australian Aboriginal musician, entertainer and artist. Hudson is a multi-instrumentalist and was taught to play traditional didgeridoo from an early age. He also plays guitar, kit drums, percussion. He plays traditional music, as well as more ambient music, country-folk, rock, and new age.
Mark Atkins is an Australian Aboriginal musician known for his skill on the didgeridoo, a traditional instrument.
Djalu Gurruwiwi, written Djalu, was a Yolngu man and leader from Arnhem Land in northern Australia. He was globally recognised for his acquired skill as a player, maker, and spiritual keeper of the yiḏaki, also referred to as the didgeridoo. As a respected artist with many of his works in several galleries, he aimed to spread his culture and traditions past his own community.
Indigenous music of Australia comprises the music of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia, intersecting with their cultural and ceremonial observances, through the millennia of their individual and collective histories to the present day. The traditional forms include many aspects of performance and musical instrumentation that are unique to particular regions or Aboriginal Australian groups; and some elements of musical tradition are common or widespread through much of the Australian continent, and even beyond. The music of the Torres Strait Islanders is related to that of adjacent parts of New Guinea. Music is a vital part of Indigenous Australians' cultural maintenance.
The Yolngu or Yolŋu are an aggregation of Aboriginal Australian people inhabiting north-eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. Yolngu means "person" in the Yolŋu languages. The terms Murngin, Wulamba, Yalnumata, Murrgin and Yulangor were formerly used by some anthropologists for the Yolngu.
Clapsticks, also spelt clap sticks and also known as bilma, bimli, clappers, musicstick or just stick, are a traditional Australian Aboriginal instrument. They serve to maintain rhythm in voice chants, often as part of an Aboriginal ceremony.
The Gove Peninsula is at the northeastern corner of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. The peninsula became strategically important during World War II when a Royal Australian Air Force base was constructed at what is now Gove Airport. The peninsula was involved in a famous court case known as the Gove land rights case, when local Yolngu people tried to claim native title over their traditional lands in 1971, after the Australian Government had granted a mineral lease to a bauxite mining company without consulting the local peoples. Today the land is owned by the Yolngu people.
Charlie McMahon is an Australian didgeridoo player. The founder of the group Gondwanaland, McMahon was one of the first non-Aboriginal musicians to gain fame as a professional player of the instrument.
Coloured Stone is an Aboriginal Australian band whose members originate from the Koonibba Mission, west of Ceduna, South Australia. The band performs using guitar, bass, drums, and Aboriginal instruments – didjeridu, bundawuthada and clap sticks – to play traditional music.
Yirrkala is a small community in East Arnhem Region, Northern Territory, Australia, 18 kilometres (11 mi) southeast of the large mining town of Nhulunbuy, on the Gove Peninsula in Arnhem Land. Its population comprises predominantly Aboriginal Australians of the Yolngu people, and it is also home to a number of Mission Aviation Fellowship pilots and engineers based in Arnhem Land, providing air transport services.
Milingimbi Island, also Yurruwi, is the largest island of the Crocodile Islands group off the coast of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia.
Australian Aboriginal culture includes a number of practices and ceremonies centered on a belief in the Dreamtime and other mythology. Reverence and respect for the land and oral traditions are emphasised. Over 300 languages and other groupings have developed a wide range of individual cultures. Due the colonization of Australia under terra nullius concept these cultures were treated as one monoculture. Australian Aboriginal art has existed for thousands of years and ranges from ancient rock art to modern watercolour landscapes. Aboriginal music has developed a number of unique instruments. Contemporary Australian Aboriginal music spans many genres. Aboriginal peoples did not develop a system of writing before colonisation, but there was a huge variety of languages, including sign languages.
David Blanasi was an Aboriginal man of the Mayali language group of west Arnhem Land, who is known for popularising the didgeridoo outside Australia, after appearing on television on the Rolf Harris show in 1967. He subsequently travelled the world playing his "mago" and was widely recognised for his skills.
William Barton is an Aboriginal Australian didgeridoo player. He was born in Mount Isa, Queensland on 4 June 1981 and learned to play at the age of 11 from Uncle Arthur Peterson an elder of the Wannyi, Lardil and Kalkadungu tribes of Western Queensland. He is widely recognised as one of Australia's finest traditional didgeridoo players and a leading didgeridoo (yidaki) player in the classical world.
Adolphus Peter Elkin was an Anglican clergyman, an influential Australian anthropologist during the mid twentieth century and a proponent of the assimilation of Indigenous Australians.
Modern didgeridoo designs are distinct from the traditional Australian Aboriginal didgeridoo, and are innovations recognized by musicologists. Didgeridoo design innovation started in the late 20th century using non-traditional materials and non-traditional shapes. The design changes include features that are similar to more familiar musical instruments like the trombone and natural horn.
The Kunwinjku people are an Australian Aboriginal people, one of several groups within the Bininj people, who live around West Arnhem Land to the east of Darwin, Northern Territory. Kunwinjku people generally refer to themselves as "Bininj" in much the same way that Yolŋu people refer to themselves as "Yolŋu".
Wangga is an Aboriginal Australian genre of traditional music and ceremony which originated in Northern Territory and north Western Australia. Specifically, from South Alligator River south east towards Ngukurr, south to the Katherine and west into the Kimberley. The Yolngu peoples of Arnhem Land created the genre.