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7.18.00 Brandi
Chase, San Diego California Steve the Armadillo passed it off to me while we were in Seattle, but forgot to bring the journal. He still has the journal as far as I know, I am waiting for him to send it to me before I hand it off to Adrian Smith. I
can understand why so few people have recorded themselves playing on
the instrument, its not any easy one to play. Especially after we removed
the wax mouth piece that was on it, because Peter told us when he had
it, there was no such mouth piece. After removing the wax from the instrument
it went from hard to play, to darn near impossible, at least for my
little lips.
But
that is not the only difficulty with the Wanderer. I think that Guan
chose this instrument for the experiment because of its nature: it sounds
great when played a specific way, and that way is foreign to most all
of us. Since I've been mucking around with it, I can hear so much potential
in the different sound qualities and harmonics, but I can't begin to
understand how they should be assembled.
more later, Brandi
Hardly more later, Here is it November 4, and I'm just getting around to writing about the WD at our house. Gary + Chris of Tucson Didj Gathering fame visited us one fine evening in August and got to have a blow on the wanderer (thankfully after it had been repaired) and dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant in our now old neighborhood. The repair pictures are below. We sent the Wandering
Didj off with Adrian Smith shortly before the Didjeridu event in Joshua
Tree, and I beleive it is still with him now. He probably looks a
little like this as he's playing it: 7.18.00 Randy Graves, same place
So the Wandering Didge joined the Randy/Brandi/Mister Lister road trip at the end of June in Seattle, Washington, where it had travelled with Steve the Armadillo. Unfortunately the journal didn't come with it. We've been waiting to receive that before continuing the didge on its way. But there has been another complication... sorry to be so dramatic... It started when we first pulled it out, and saw the hunk of yellow wax on it. We were of course mortified! We knew that it was a traditionally made didge, made to be played without wax. I knew that part of Guan's original purpose in selecting this didge to send around the world was to give everyone a taste of a traditionally made didgeridoo from Arnhem Land. So we pulled off the wax in a frenzy, and then were surprised to find a HUGE mouthpiece that very few people could play very well. The shape seemed very uncharacteristic for a traditionally made stick. So, I bashfully figured okay, I'll put as little wax on it as I can get away with. But it still didn't seem to play quite right to me, and struck me as odd because it seemed very different from any didge I've ever seen. I even joked that maybe Guan was purposefully giving us all a didge that was hard to play. This week, I tried to subtly mention something about this to Guan as I was suspicious, and sure enough, he confirmed my fear that someone along the way decided to do some work on the wandering didge by thinning out the wood at the mouthpiece end. The exterior of the wood is about 5cm diameter, but the bore was originally only about 3cm, so that the wood is thick at the top. This is typical of instruments with flared mouthpiece ends such as this one, which is what made me suspicious. The mouthpiece has now been thinned out thouroughly to at least half again the original mouthpiece size. Not only does this make the didge very difficult for most people to play without lots of wax, but it also drastically changes the back pressure of the instrument, because you're blowing into a huge bore that then narrows down very small before flaring our slowly again. I've discussed with Guan what to do about it. The first reaction of course was horror. This was the first traditional didgeridoo that Guan ever got, and the mouthpiece shape was a crucial part of that. The project was supposed to be about spreading around what a raw traditionally crafted didge is, and what it's like to play one. So for an unknown amount of time, that purpose has been somewhat spoiled. We are going to continue the didge on its way after I attempt some alterations on it. I'm going to use some wood filler to try and fill in the wood that has been removed, and try to return the mouthpiece to a flat surface with about a 3mm diameter. It won't of course be the same as it was, but hopefully it'll be close, and will be closer to the original backpressure and playing response that it had. We are curious
where and when this happened, largely so that we know who out there
got the experience of playing this instrument as it was crafted by the
Aboriginal maker, and who didn't. So if all of you out there who have
seen the instrument can email me privately and let me know what the
mouthpiece was like when you got it. Compare what you played to the
current image This of course was an unexpected result of the Wandering Didge experiment, but also is very interesting. As happens with a lot o traditional didgeridoos, someone tried to improve the wandering didge by thinning out the walls- trying to make it conform to a more normal western idea of what makes a good instrument. It's the difference between working with the natural bore of the tree and an aesthetic more along the lines of "it's not done until all the work that can be done on it has been done." So we have definitely learned something about the difference between traditional and non-traditional instruments, and how people around the world will react to that difference! LATEST UPDATE! John Burrows, the first USA recipient, confirms that the work was done before he got it. Yet Rob Hughes, first recipient in the Western Hemisphere, commented long ago about it having a small mouthpiece that needed no wax. So it seems to have happened somewhere between the few people who had it in Canada. You can't pin this one on the Yanks! JOHN BURROWS:Friday, July 28, 2000 : Wandering Didj Morph: I would be very surprised if anyone did anything more than put some wax on the mouthpiece. I was the fourth person to get the Wandering Didj. The picture you have on your website looks exactly how it looked when I took the wax off. In the picture you can still see the red ochre/paint inside the mouthpiece. Unless someone carved the end out and then repainted it, I really doubt someone took a knife or chisel to the mouthpiece. As I remember, it always had a largish mouthpiece -- I think that's why Robert Hughes said he put wax on it initially, as he wasn't able to get a good sound out of it when it arrived. For someone to take it upon themselves to "improve" the yidaki in this way would be especially surprising considering no one has decided to try and attempt any serious repairs to the cracks. (I always thought it would be more likely for someone to unwittingly try to fix it by giving it a glue bath or something.) And when I tried it at Ed's house last month, it had the same sound/feel as I remember in Dec '98. I just think it can be a very challenging instrument for some people as it's so unusual compared to any instrument I've ever seen. I truly hope no one was rude enough to alter it permanently. Putting a wax mouthpiece on isn't terrible, but taking wood away is another story altogether. Cheers, John Dave DeLacey: Sent: Friday, July 28, 2000 : Wandering Didj Morph Hi Randy, Double-check this with Ed and Shi, because it has been a while, but I think that's roughly the size of the mouthpiece when it was up here around Xmas-NY's of..what, 99? It did have wax on it then, but not the huge glob I keep hearing about. It didn't close the diameter much if any. And I do remember that the bore coned at least some at the top, because it was the first I'd seen that did. But how much? That's where I can't say for sure, and begin doubting what I remember about it. ~4.5cm ( if I read you right) sounds bigger than I remember it, but 3cm sounds small. It was noticeably bigger than the one I was playing at the time, which is/was a tad more than 3. Not much help, am I? :) Btw, I was talking to Ed about it a few days after the workshop, and he mentioned the mouthpiece was a bit big for his taste. He didn't say anything about it being bigger or different than he remembered, though. He might have been the only Portland host of the WD to have enough experience with different (and different styles of) sticks to notice whether it seemed unusual or not. I'd take his word for it. Wishing this helped, Dave DeLacey Portland, Or.n Chris Riley: Monday, July 31, 2000: Wandering Didj Morph: Brandi When I had the WD it had a large landing approx 1/4" or wider with a central hole approx 1 1/4 - 1" oval type central hole. Looking at the web picture the mouthpiece has been widened by at least 1/4' overall. Will look at home to see if some of the picies I took show the mouthpiece. Cheers Chris Riley Tassie Oz Shi: Monday, July 31, 2000: Wandering Didj Morph I remember it having some wax on the mouthpiece. I did not know about it's original condition so wasn't looking for any alterations. One thing I did note though (I'm not sure if I put it in the journal or not) was the "thinness" of the upper section of the didj. I found that it was unusually thin walled for being on the upper part of the stick and the part that is probably going to be supporting alot of weight if you were to pick it up by the mouthpiece end. At this time there were also some tiny cracks appearing in this same area that were being filled with wax. Not sure if this helps out any but that is what I remember. Although it's been some time ago. Bright Blessings, Lawrence 08.19.00 Randy Graves, same place
The pressure is much better now- feels much more natural, and takes a lot less force. Of course, it seemed that everyone had a good deal of wax on it before, including some stuffed down inside
the opening, which should have helped a bit. But when all the wax was removed, and when I had just a little bit to close the opening, it took a lot of force to play the tone well. Now it's a nice tight opening, a flat mouthpiece (as the original would have just been sawed off flat), with an oval at about 3cm at its widest. I hope those who have had the instrument so far had the wax constricting the opening enough to get close to the feel it has now. At least nobody complained too much, that's for sure! The journal shows that several people found it awkward at first and then got used to it- probably after tweaking the wax to their own specs. I hope somehow all you folks get a chance to see it again, but for the movement, this thing has got to keep on moving. So... an obvious restatement of the rules. Don't muck with the Didj! It's now in a state approved by the original owner, and should stay that way. The didj now even has a note to that effect
on it. ;-) It should not need any wax. To get the feel of playing it the way it was intended when it was made, it should be played bareback. We'll have it a few more days to play it in its new state and make a recording or two, then there's three more folks in San Diego, then the WD moves on out of California... FINALLY.
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Or
of course if you did the work, please let me know privately. We don't
want to make it public necessarily and make a scene for anyone, we just
want to know who saw what, and possibly discuss the issue. 
So
the WD's mouthpiece has been recreated thanks to some PC Woody donated
by Dragon Didger Chris Canole, and everyone who has tried it so far
agrees it's a vast improvement. I showed some photos to Guan, and he
says it looks about right for how the instrument started out. You can
see a couple pics dotted about this page. These photos were slightly
before completion, but give the general idea. 
