From: Richard F. Man
Date: Monday, June 14, 1999
Subject: It's mine, all mine!

Haa haa hahh. I now possess the Wandering Didj. It's mine, all mine!!! Heee haaa hhaaaa... I will rename it as Richard Man's didj, heee heee.... mine mine mine, all mine, no one else can have it.... If anyone tries to take it, I will turn it into the WHACK'ing Didj.

Did I say it's mine.... heeee heeeehhh

(Silently bow to the general direction of Australia, where Guan Lim lives, what a great guy, I'm glad our ancestors come from the same "clan" in China.)

p.s. in case it is not quite obvious, I haven't quite turned that looney yet. It will be a sad event when it leaves, sniff. -- // richard

From: Richard F. Man
Date: Wednesday, July  7, 1999
Subject: WD Wandering Experience 

By this time tomorrow, Geoff Brown will be the proud holder of the WD, time to write down my thoughts.

I have the WD probably longer than most other people. However, while in my possession, it wandered to the Boulder Solstice Gathering, and to the Yosemite Karate bootcamp. My guess is that over a dozen other people have tried it during this time. This little wandering is captured by

the picture my wife Chris did on the WD. As an aside, Charles Schink left a very clever mark. It means "Traveling."

The WD is one of the most versatile didjs I ever played, and I have played with some of the most awesome didjs in the Clarion's selections. It is very easy to play, but also has immense depth for advance players. The tonal range is very wide. The (falsetto) vocals came out very loudly, much better than most euc didjs I have

played. As with most didjs, it taught me quite a few lessons. Regretfully, while it has the right shape of a traditional NE Arnhem Land didj, my attempt at Yolngu rhythms made slow improvement.

Too bad that my recordings do not do it justice, perhaps the WD should continue to make its round around the world so that we can see how much we improve and change the second time we meet it. With its slow progress, I'm not sure if anyone can wait

for the 3rd round ;-)

One last thing, it came with a thick wad of a beeswax mouthpiece. I suspect it did not originally come that way. The earlier WDers please enlighten me. In anycase, I took a good chunk off but package it with the didj so the future holders can add it back if they want. I removed all of it once but that did not result it a clean toot. Feel free to experiment.

-- // richard http://www.imagecraft.com

From: Richard F.  Man 
Date:  Thursday, July 8, 1999 
Subject:  WD & Waxed Mouthpeice

What an interesting thread! I would venture to guess that Peter Lister is right - a big reason why all people I've met who tried the WD, including newbies, said that it is easy to play is due to the wax mouthpiece. I can confirm that w/o the mouthpiece, if nothing else, my toots do not end clearly. e.g. even with a little bit of the mouthpiece, I can get a clean toot for many seconds,

whereas without it, the toot loses cohesion after a short while. And my wife, who is a rank beginner, can no loner get a good drone now that I ripped the mouthpiece off. Your mileage may vary of course and no doubt stronger players can get better results. I am also intriqued by Chris Riley statement that "..then again the mouthpiece is small and thus makes it easy to play without the wax." Not to make judgement or anything, but this may indicate the size of Chris' mouth ;-)

Oh well, the WD seems to be taking a life of its own, transforming itself and people associated with it... As I said, I will (yes will, since Geoff is busy today...) package the wax in a small bag with it. I'd recommend not putting much on, if any, to try to keep the original spirit, if it still applies...

-- // richard

________________

Well, I guess I oughta put my tuppence in.... And here

anywhere without alteration. After all, my kid plays on a 1/4 size violin, not my full size one ;-). Maybe expecting one size fits all from any didj is a bit much? Just a thought. --- Chris W. (Richard's wife)

PS: Although she can't circular breathe, our 8-year-old daughter can usually get a better sound out of any didj than I can! ;-) PPS: The WD circled the Grizzly Giant Sequoia 3 times at Yosemite - I guess it's picking up the Land's sacred blessings everywhere...

From: Richard F. Man

Monday, September 06, 1999

Subject: The Wandering Didj, redux

Did I say I saw the WD at the Blanasi workshop? Geoff was passing it off to John there. I took the advantage and played with it a little bit more. It really is a wonderful didj, equally suitable to traditional style, and the non-traditional styles (balanda, balanda, balanda, hee hee).

And just in case John Madill is not killing all message with WD in the title, and to annoy him, I overheard someone say, "go play the wandering didj, Blanasi just played it."

For the record, I have not seen the journal, and neither has Geoff, as far as I know. The journal appears to be having its own wandering journey ;-)

Oh finally, I did play one of Blanasi's old didjs - it went through a tour all cracked and stuff which they patched up using massive amount of "craft's glue" and honeybag. It plays very nicely. For the Sunday workshop, I picked up a nice WAL traditional stick from Clarion's collection (they don't have much of those). It worked out really nicely. Nice and loud ;-) It's in the "Permanent Collection." (I kind of did that on purpose - pick out a stick in the permanent collection, then I don't have to worry about controlling opening the wallet ;-) I'd say these two sticks are equal in quality. -- // richard http://www.imagecraft.com