by Ed Drury

When you get down to it, most of us are musicians all our lives. This issue, I got to chat with one of the lucky souls who's been able to realize this simple truth and explore it using a variety of talents in business, woodworking, web mastering and personality. Indeed, John Madill is one of the "personalities" of the cyber didj scene. Creating a business and a community at the same time, John has provided a valuable service and resource on the web through the community pages of his web site. There, people can browse through a calendar of events relating to their favorite instrument, read volumes of information which is linked to the very busy list server at Mills College and even gather together on Sunday nights to chat live with each other.        -Ed

[Ed]  How did you first get into didjeridu playing?

[John]   Through the internet ... believe it or not. I'm into shamanic journey, and was doing some research on the internet when I stumbled across the website of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies at http://www.shamanism.org. They listed a tape entitled "Didjeridu: For The Shamanic Journey" that caught my attention. I've been a musician since I was 14, but I had absolutely no idea what a didjeridu was ... so I listened to the sound sample and was instantly hooked! I was then off on a mission to learn about this instrument ... using the internet ... and I learned a lot in a short period of time. As an aside, I'm still learning and I'm convinced I will never stop learning about this wonderful instrument and Australia's first people who gave it to the world.

As interested as I was, it really was never my intention to play the didjeridu, but my wife Julie thought otherwise, and that year for Christmas she blessed me with an Australian termite hollowed instrument. I was blown away. I then set out to learn how to apply all that I've read to the instrument. Just picking it up I could drone and make animal noises, and in about a week I was able to do a continuous drone with circular breathing. I must add though that I pretty much alienated my family during that time frame ... my daughters referred to the sound I made as an "old dying cow in heat" and my wife was convinced she'd made a mistake buying me that thing.

[Ed]  When people investigate the shamanic journey, I've generally found they rediscover pieces of their past. Many times, it is a re-awakening of a previous musical or artist involvement. Other times it is a new discovery of expression. Did playing the didjeridu begin to open up or reconnect you to a broader musical or artistic form?

[John]  Boy ... that's an interesting segue! <G> The didjeridu has most definitely opened me up, both musically and spiritually. As a result, I have 2 types of playing that I do. I play musically, and I play for my self. The didjeridu has opened me up musically because there is basically one note to work with, and that has helped me to learn how to make the most of what I have. It has also opened me up to be much more cognizant of the spaces in between notes and opened me up to a lot of different rhythms. Consequently, it led me to many more types of music. As an electric guitarist, I was convinced that in order to be considered a good player, I needed to play a lot of notes really fast. Playing the didjeridu has shown me that I should pay as much attention to the space between the notes as I do to the notes, not to mention the emotion and sincerity of the performance.

Spiritually, the didjeridu has opened me up because it has slowed me down. I sit still when I play, I focus my attention on the drone and my breathing. Humans are 3 part beings ... mind, body and spirit. We will usually ignore the spirit, because unlike the mind and the body, it places no demands on us. Focusing on the drone allows me to center and ground my self ... get my self "out of the mind" where I usually spend too much time. The breathing can put my body on auto-pilot. With the mind quiet and the body occupied, the spirit [or soul] is free to experience life.

With regards to your statement about shamanic journey, you are correct about rediscovery! In my understanding, we are born with the answers in our spirit, but our minds have been taught over the years by parents and society to replace those answers with "better" ones. Shamanic journey allows us to "reconnect" with the Universe and it's answers, and in effect, to rediscover our past.

As an aside, I've played guitar for the better part of 30 years, but when I found the didj I stopped playing it. Then, I had a shamanic soul retrieval performed, where the Shaman saw an event that featured a "beautiful, wondrous guitar!" Knowing how things can be fuzzy and sometimes open to interpretation, I just basically assumed that he meant didjeridu or that it represented music in general, and forgot about it. About a year later, I did find myself drawn head first back into guitar and writing music for guitar and didj.

[Ed]  Generally, when we are "pulled" back into music, we re-discover the joys of collaboration and shared experiences with other musicians. I know that you have played with Dominic Gaudious and Tim Whittemore and others. Being multi-instrumental my self that the experience of each instrument I play helps me to better combine with other musicians playing other instruments. I wonder if you could share a bit about how you write for the didjeridu and guitar. Personally, I tend to write modal guitar pieces and invent the didj parts for those. Do you write first on the guitar with the didj in mind, first on the didj and add the guitar to it or both?

[John]  Playing more than one instrument certainly does make me think more about "making the pieces fit" if for no other reason than it is difficult, if not impossible, for me to play all the parts at one time. I play: acoustic, electric and bass guitars; didjeridu; percussion and Native American flute. I do need to work out how the pieces fit, on paper or recording tape -- but the bottom line is that the focus has to be on making the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Playing only one instrument can certainly limit one's perspective to "how do I play my part?" instead of having a true understand of how all the pieces work together.

The first piece that I wrote for guitar and didge was almost a disaster. I'd only been playing for a short time and decided it was time to try to write something to integrate the two instruments. So, I went into my studio and started recording stuff. The only didge I had was a C#, so I wrote this moving bassline around C#, and then added in drum & click sticks for percussion, a "flute" part with my guitar synth, and really felt good about it. Then came time to put down some didjeridu. I figured it would just come to me as I played, and it did. Only took a couple of takes and I had it. Then I listened to it. I was totally shocked at what I heard. The rhythms I was playing that I heard so loud in my head just did not appear on the tape. Nothing wrong with the microphone or the recording equipment, just my playing. Nobody had told me that what comes out the other end of the instrument was NOT what you heard inside your head. It sounded so bad that I wondered if I'd ever get it, and put the piece aside.

(Note: If I have any really important advice for new players it would be "find a way to hear what comes out the far end of the stick!" Use a karaoke machine, a corner, the bathtub, whatever. Just find a way to hear the other end and focus your attention there.)

A few months later, a friend of mine introduced me to Dominic Gaudious. I heard some of the stuff he had written for guitar and didjeridu, and was amazed! Not only is he a talented performer, but he has this wonderful melodic sense that comes through in his compositions. In this performance he was playing with my friend Ian Hesford and a percussionist named Ken Anoff. After the performance, I talked to Dominic about writing for the guitar & didge and he turned me on to something new ... alternate tunings. All of a sudden, things started making sense. If your tuning on the guitar is "locked" into an open chord, you can develop all sorts of melodies while still droning out a fundamental. So, I started writing pieces that were based on open tunings, and then just added the didj in later.

Another really important thing happened at that gig ... I met Ken Anoff. Ken & I started getting together on a regular basis after that and started working on a few recording projects. That was also a very instrumental (excuse the pun) experience for me. Ken is an absolutely wonderful percussionist! His primary instrument is the Hadgini, which is kinda like a "double udu" made of clay. Ken started teaching me a lot about rhythm, and we wrote some pieces that are basically percussion and didj. The way we worked on those was to pick a rhythm to start with, and then add in a couple of different changes to keep it interesting. One of the most complex pieces (change wise) is a piece we wrote called "Shapeshifter" which is 16 bars in 15, 16 bars in 9, 16 bars in 15, 16 bars of 7 and then the sequence repeats. FYI, the 15 we did as [4+4+4+3] and the 9 section was done as 4 groups of [4+3+2][4+3+2][4+3+2][3+3+3]. Oh, and the 9 and 7 sections were done cut time, meaning they were twice as fast. Performing a piece like this is technically challenging, but it is important to remember that your audience just might not "get it" ... so make sure that the piece is not just an ego thing, and that it has some appeal to the audience.

Ken also plays the South American Native Flute, called a Quena, so we also added some flute in to some of the guitar pieces. This was the foundation for my band, Kurunba. When we decided we were going to take Kurunba out an perform this stuff live, we had to add another didj player [Tim Whittemore] because I wasn't yet able to play didj and guitar at the same time, and another percussionist [Pat Ridenour] because Ken couldn't play flute and drums at the same time.

Adding another didj player added another aspect of composition for the didj. Tim and I have worked on some material where we actually play different keyed instruments and/or overlapping rhythms. Oh ... and then there is always the "Let's do a jam in 3 and let the flute solo" or the impromptu didjeridu duets.

So, I guess the answer to your question is "it all depends!" If I'm writing something that's for the guitar and didge, I'll just write the guitar part making sure there are no modulations and key changes -- as you say "modal" -- and worry about the didj later. If I'm working on something rhythmic based, then it's a matter of working out the didj part first, as if it were a percussion instrument.

[Ed]  Intonation is an obvious concern when mixing the didjeridu with other instruments. I wonder if there are some other factors in instrument selection which you have thoughts on. I know I select different didjeridus for different purposes. As an instrument importer you obviously have a wide pallet to choose from. Can you tell me a little about your current collection and how you arrived at the point your at now?

[John]  It's easy to select an instrument ... you just pick the one that sounds the best! <g>

One thing that I'm sure that you'll appreciate is that although each instrument has it's own character, it's not necessarily a mystery as to how it sounds the way it sounds. You're right, as an importer I have access to quite a few instruments. One thing it has done for me is given me some tools that aren't necessarily available to everyone. The challenge, as a "didjeridu sales person" is to know each of your instruments ... and to know 'em you've got to play 'em. Not for hours on end, as nice as that would be, but to play each one for the shortest possible time and figure out what the basic characteristics are. Get that info, file it away, and remember where it is so when someone comes looking for a specific type, you can find it.

So, I've spent a lot time playing a lot of different instruments, and looking down the bore to figure out "what makes it do that?" This has helped me figure out what my own tastes are, and also helps me categorize instruments so I can tell what it is a customer is looking for. This has allowed me to divorce my personal preferences from the equation when I help someone find an instrument, unless of course our tastes are in agreement. This information also comes in handy for repairs or tuning work. Look down the bore, figure out what the problem is (based upon my limited experience) and surgically remove it.

It would be an understatement to say that everyone likes the same thing. I've been amazed at what different people prefer. I can pretty much say that if I can find one instrument you like, I can find the rest of them for you too. Big bore, small bore, straight bore, large bell, medium bell, high restriction, low restriction, etc. Each of these things does something to the sound. Different combinations do different things. The more instruments you handle, the more obvious these traits become. The task is to match the characteristics with the player.

As for my personal collection, well I guess you could say that they're all mine until I find them new homes! <g> Seriously, I have a few that I call my own. My "first" is a C# that was made by Bill Harney and was decorated by Farrell Dempsey. Bill Harney makes sticks that are really clean on the inside. That makes them pretty rich in harmonics. Pretty big bore, making it not so good for a lot of rhythmic work. Great meditative pipe though.

My next stick is a D that was made for me by David Hudson. You can tell when you see it ... David's tell-tale hand prints on it and JOHN in huge block letters. I didn't ask for my name on there, but David thought it should be there. Oh Well. This stick is a KILLER instrument. When I ordered it from him, I had decided to either get a Djalu or one from David. The deciding factor was that I loved David's playing and his sound, and I knew he made his own instruments, so I went with the known entity. It has a wonderful sound. Really hard wood, clean narrow bore, and natural mouthpiece.

Another one I have is an Eb that was made by Bill Harney. When I got it, it was cracked and broken so bad that I could see daylight through the cracks. It was given to me, as it had no value to the previous owner. It had this wonderful shape though, slender neck with a nice tapered bell, so I had to fix it. I patched it up, and played it ... I kept it. Unfortunately, because of all the cracks and repairs, the artwork was pretty much destroyed. After a while, I commissioned Ron Sill to redecorate it for me. Only thing that I asked is that he re-apply the same totems that were on it originally, but he could do it in whatever style he chose. He did a gorgeous job on it! Now it looks as good as it sounds. You can see this didj in my picure at the beginning of this article

I have an A that was a gift from David Hudson. Really long, slender didj with that trademark David Hudson sound to it. I asked David about that sound, and he told me "I pay my termites well, Mate!" This pipe has an unusually narrow bore, making it able to do faster rhythms which is not really common in instruments of that key.

I also have a sweet little F Agave Dreampipe that Allan Shockley made. I talked to him about it last year in Tucson. It was a D that Allan said he was looking for an excuse to cut down, so he cut it down to an F for me and put a wooden mouthpiece on it for me. It's really pretty too. Nice light blonde color with his trademark turquoise inlays.

The rest of what I'd call my own are the hardwood instruments that I've made. So far, I've made four. A pine C#, an ash E, a cherry D and a black walnut F. I've loaned them all out with the exception of the F, because I REALLY like that instrument! I wanted to get some feedback from players in the field on these pipes. I've toyed with the idea of selling them, but they take a lot of time and I'd have to sell 'em for a bit more than most would pay for a non-traditional instrument. Of course, if they were blindfolded, the selection criteria might be skewed a little more in my favor! <G>

The three hardwood instruments I loaned out have been gone since Dave Crowder's Boulder Solstice Event, and I must tell you, I really miss those instruments. I can attribute their playing ability to the termites in Australia, but the actual construction technique I use for them was presented to me in a dream. The bores of all of my hardwood instruments have been "sculpted" based on characteristics of multiple instruments I have played.

If I had to sum up my preference in an instrument, it would be medium back pressure, with a clear tone and even volume for all characteristics ... toots, drone, harmonics, pops ... none overpowering the other.

As far as key selection is concerned, if we have a lead instrument, that will determine the key. If it's a guitar piece, it will generally be in D. We do one song we call "Out of Here" that features the Quena flute on the recording, but we perform with a clarinet lead now. The original was done in F# because Ken had this great Quena that spanned 3 octaves! The clarinet, though, works better with F. Tim [Whittemore] and I both play didj on that piece, he plays a low F, and I play the high F. Anything else is just subject to whatever key the piece was written in at the time.

[Ed]  What about recording the pieces? Do you lay the tracks down in the same order, or with a philosophy about the order? Does your microphone placement and board settings change drastically for each different didj or do you apply a consistent formula and use it in most if not all situations?

[John]  I guess it really depends on the piece. If it's something that I've written or am in the process of writing, and I play more than one instrument, I usually have no choice but to overdub the parts. In case anyone needs a definition, by overdub I mean I'll play and record one instrument, rewind, play that track back and record another instrument with it.

Generally speaking, though, regardless of who I'm working with or what we're recording, I almost always record a "click track" to start with. A click track is a very precise drum machine or metronome recording. In some instances, I'll just record Ken ... since he really is "Mr. Metronome" ... he never moves off the beat. I have this theory about music, and life in general for that matter. If your listener stops tapping their foot to your music, you've lost 'em. It doesn't matter if it is your fault or theirs, you've lost 'em just the same. As a result it will take some effort to get them back. So all the stuff I do I focus on keeping the "one" and not letting the instruments wander off the count. This is especially important if you want to add other instruments in later. I heartily recommend that people work on their pieces with a metronome before they come in to record. You'll be surprised how working with a metronome will help you understand your own music better.

So, after we have a click track, I'll try to record whatever instrument defines the song. For instance, if it's one of my guitar pieces, I'll record the guitar part. If it's primarily a didj piece, I'll put that down. One of the really nice things about having a studio at my disposal 24 hours a day is that I can use it as a "scratch pad" of sorts. I just "write" my ideas down, file 'em away, and then work on them again when I feel inspired. It's also very helpful when I am collaborating with other people. I just make a tape and let them write or learn their part.

I will always try record a sound as "pure" as possible, without effects or any signal processing. That leaves me free to add or remove effects later on. Of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule. If there's an effect that really causes a piece to work, and the artist can only play with that effect, then I'll try to give them that effect, at least in the headphones while they're playing, record the clean sound and the effected signal on separate tracks. This way we can go back and play with it later, and if what works the best is the original effect, we use that.

Sometimes the effect IS the song. Sometimes the distortion or "noise" defines the piece. If that's the case, then use it! As an example, I've started working with a guy who makes music out of sound collages. He will actually USE a defect in a particular stomp box [effect device] as part of his construction ... make a loop out of it and use it as a rhythm, or whatever. It's really great to be a part of the creative process like that. Mickey Hart said it pretty well in his book "Drumming at the Edge of Magic" when he said something to the effect of "An artist will not discard certain colors from their palette because they don't like the color. Why should noise be discarded from our musical palette?"

As for microphone placement, I've learned to use a very powerful tool in a special way. I use my ears, and I use them, not to listen to other's opinions about microphone placement and such, but to figure out what sounds the best to me. I'll just experiment with mic placement with a set of headphones on, just moving the mic around until it sounds the best. Sure, I'll start with something I know works well, but the key is to listen. Make the sound on the tape sound like the sound in your head.

Usually where all the big fun starts is in the mixing process. That's when I can experiment with volume levels, settings and effects ... as I try to build something bigger out of all these pieces I've recorded. One part of my process in mixing down is to try to look at the piece as a whole, and to understand what frequency ranges each instrument is in. It also helps me to think in terms of this as I assemble a piece. I try to think about what instruments occupy what space in the frequency range, and try to eliminate contention for that space ... unless that is the desired effect.

As an example, if you hear a recording that sounds "muddy" it's usually because the drums, bass, guitar and whatever are all locked into the same sound space. What I mean by this is that they are playing parts that are in the same frequency range. If that's the case, there is very little that can be done in the mixing process to clean that up. So what I tend to do is to try to build soundscapes in a perceived 3 dimensional field. I can place things at varying places from left to right by panning them. I can place things from front to back by setting the volume. I can also set things bottom to top by instrument selection and by where in the frequency range an instrument is played. As a result, instruments in the same frequency range can work if they are placed opposite (left and right) in the stereo field. This creates space for them to be heard separately.

Another thing I've noticed is that when I record an instrument, I also record the room and it's particular characteristics. When I record many instruments separately, each track will also include the "room" noise. When I then go to mix that down, although each instrument is there separately, the "room" on each track becomes cumulative when added in to the mix. This cumulative room noise can really muddy the recording. What I try to do in the mixdown process to eliminate the mud is to very carefully adjust the EQ of each track to eliminate sounds outside of the range of the instrument that's on that track. If you do this, and then compare it to the original as recorded, it actually sounds like it's louder ... because each sound is more clearly defined.

With recording, as in performing and life in general, I've learned to be more focused on the process and less with the result. I've learned to be more open to experimentation. If I have a preconceived idea of the end result, I may be disappointed. Whereas if you keep an open mind, enjoy the process, and ensure every step along the way that you are doing the best you can with what you have, it is very likely that the results will be better than you could have imagined. The journey IS the destination.

[Ed]  You also are connected in a very real sense to all the didjeridu players in cyberspace...real time on Sunday nights. Can you tell us a little about how you conceived, manage and have reacted to running the didjeridu chat room especially on the now traditional Sunday nights (which I've missed BTW since taking a club gig every Sunday night)?

[John]   Congratulations on the club gig! That's the real reason we practice and rehearse, isn't it? For those interested, "practice" is what you do by your self. "Rehearse" is what you do with other members of the band to make sure what did in "practice" works with what they're playing.

Since I had been been really involved with electronic communications, e-mail, newsgroups, websites and the internet before I got involved with this didj business, it seemed to make sense that I apply some of that experience to it. It made even more sense to me since I found the didjeridu through the net.

There are two very important things about the internet. The first is that it makes the world smaller by making previously unavailable items and information available to people. It brought me information about the didjeridu and how to play it. It made instruments available to me. It brought a community of people that were interested in the didjeridu to me. It opened my mind to the history of the Aboriginal Australians. It also made me acutely aware that local people familiar with the didjeridu would be few and far between, thus making me more reliant on my new found "internet-didjeridu-community" for conversations and input about the instrument.

The second thing is that the internet is a great equalizer. It can make a small company look just as impressive as the biggest based upon the web design and a strong internet presence. At times, Joyous Noise Music has been accused of being a "huge corporate entity" set to monopolize the didj marketplace, when it's mostly just me. Occasionally, my wife Julie or one of our four daughters will come by. Sometimes they even help out, but for the most part, this is a one man show ... but a labor of love none-the-less.

When I started setting up the Joyous Noise Music web site, one of my goals was to help further establish the on-line internet didjeridu community, and provide further assistance, so I set up a "Community" section on the web site that would hosts things related to the didjeridu community.

The first thing I set up was a Newsgroup interface to the Mills mailing list. I created a different mailing list one time when the Mills list went down for weeks and we weren't certain that it would ever come back to life. I have since linked the newsgroup interface to the list at joyousnoise.com and stopped linking to Mills. There are a few folks that use the joyousnoise list as an emergency broadcast system ... just in case Mills goes down! <g> There are a few more that use it instead of the Mills list because they don't want all the mail, but still want access to a large part of the community.

The last two additions were the Didjeridu Events Calendar, and the Chat System. The calendar can be used by anyone to check or post an event related to the didj. If you need an event posted, just send me an e-mail and I'll add it. The chat system is there so people can "talk" back and forth in real time without having to wait for the delays associated with e-mail. The chat server is running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so if anyone wants to use it, all they have to do is connect to it and communicate. It helps to send a message out to tell people when you're going to be there. For the most part, however, the main activity is Sunday Nights at 9:00pm EST.

What I intended to do was to use it not only for regularly scheduled events, but for special events as well. The best example was the chat we scheduled with David Hudson. That was a lot of fun! Only thing missing from that event was an interviewer like you to take charge. I'd like to see more things like that happen ... performers, didge makers, artists, whatever.

So, why do I do all this? Two primary reasons. One is that it helps establish a connection between Joyous Noise Music and the internet didjeridu community, and hopefully people will at least give me an opportunity to help them find that special instrument. The second is that it allows me to "give back" to a community that in essence led me to this place in my life, for which I will always be grateful.

Questions about this article can be directed to Ed Drury
Click here to send mail to John Madill.