What is a didgeridoo made of?

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A traditional didgeridoo is made from the trunk or limb of a eucalyptus tree that termites have hollowed out while the tree was still living. Today didgeridoos are also made from PVC, agave, hemp, glass and many other materials.

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What are didgeridoos made of?

How do termites hollow out a didgeridoo?

Termites come up from underground and eat their way up through the inside of a living eucalyptus tree. When the hollow they leave is the right size for a didgeridoo, the tree is harvested. In the video on What is a didgeridoo? Sanshi shows the little grooves and holes the termites leave inside.

There are over 1,000 types of eucalyptus in Australia, and termites favour different ones in different regions. The timbers used most often include bloodwood, mallee, boxwood, stringybark, woollybutt, yellow box and ironbark. We also stock wandoo didgeridoos from Western Australia.

Each didge has one main note, set by how the tree grew and how the termites hollowed it out.

How is a didgeridoo made?

1. Find a hollow tree. The makers peel back a little bark on trees of a suitable diameter, then flick the trunk and listen for the right hollow sound.
2. Cut it and clean it out. Traditionally the termite hollowed didgeridoo was cut to an average length of 130 to 160cm and cleaned out with a stick or sapling.
3. Test it. The log is played, bark and all, to test it as an instrument.
4. Tune it. A didgeridoo is tuned by its length. Longer didgeridoos play lower notes and shorter ones play higher, so the end is cut down a little at a time until it gives the right sound.
5. Shape it. The outside is shaved down with blades such as a draw blade or machetes, and small to long chisels are used to work the inside.
6. Fit the mouthpiece. The mouthpiece end can have beeswax applied to make it more comfortable to play and a better size to seal the vibration. Where the termites have left a smooth, even opening there is no wax, just natural timber.
7. Finish it. There are three finishes: plain natural eucalyptus, the same timber polished to a gloss, or painted by an Aboriginal artist. Artwork ranges from dot painting to ochre applied with a chewed grass brush on a traditional yidaki.

The finish does not change the sound. It is purely about looks.

Making a yidaki in Arnhem Land: what we saw

We have had the privilege of spending time in Arnhem Land with a senior Yolngu yidaki maker and his family, and helping to collect the trees. Yidaki is the Yolngu name for the didgeridoo. This is how we described it at the time.

During the collection the family would walk and walk and walk deeper into the rugged bush, peeling back a little bark of suitable diameter trees, then they would flick the trunk, listening for the right hollow sound.

Before the log gained approval to be made into an instrument, small saplings and sticks were broken off at the cut site and used to poke out the termite residue from within the hollow of the tree. This required a little time and an aggressive poking action, along with banging the log onto another log to dislodge any bits and pieces from within the potential yidaki. Once satisfied that most of the loose bits were gone the log would be played, bark and all, to test the instrumental qualities.

Using a few different size machetes and blades, the outer log was shaped into a yidaki. I guess the initial chunky carving process was at least a few hours per log (very hard sweat producing hours).

The logs that were chosen were all a decent size, and the size of the bell is the size of the whole log, so there was a lot of scraping to do to shape up the mouthpiece end in particular. Before the outside shaping there was of course the tuning, this required cutting (with the ever famous blunt hand saw) the end of the didgeridoo down, in 2 to 5 centimeter lots, until the didgeridoo gave the right sound.

The full story, with photos from the trip, is in Making a yidaki in Arnhem Land.

How long does it take to make a didgeridoo?

There is nothing quick about it. On that Arnhem Land trip, this is how the two days went.

We went out on a 32 degree day, 100% humidity and it took 6 of us, 5 hours to collect 5 didgeridoo tree trunks. Quick math tells us that each didgeridoo took 6 man hours in challenging conditions to collect.

So after two days, between 5 of us, we didn't manage to actually complete one whole yidaki. There is nothing easy about making a didgeridoo.

How the making affects the price

Price mostly reflects the time the maker put in and the artwork.

• Lower-priced didges are cut close to termite country and made in larger numbers, usually with a natural or polished finish.
• A high-end maker may spend days finding the right tree, then work it by hand: cleaning out the bore for resonance, chisel work and tuning the toot.
• We buy direct from the makers, and each price reflects the work that went into that instrument.

A didgeridoo costs from $120 for a PVC travel didgeridoo to $2,999 for a top-end handmade instrument. Most of the eucalyptus didgeridoos we sell are between $600 and $1,000. Prices are in Australian dollars and shown excluding GST. See how much a didgeridoo costs.

Does the type of timber change the sound?

Not much. Don't worry about the type of eucalyptus when you buy your first didgeridoo.

• No timber is the best. Asking for bloodwood because someone said it is the best is like buying a red didge because red is your favourite colour.
• The maker's craftsmanship and the size of the didge do more for the sound. Timber is a subtlety to explore once your ear develops.

Benny talks about didgeridoo timbers in part 6 of our Didgeridoo Buyers Guide video series.

Didgeridoos made from other materials

PVC and plastic

Why plastic? Because plastic didgeridoos are light, virtually indestructible, cleanable and perfect for travel. Our PVC didgeridoos and the Didjeribone slide didgeridoo, which is made in Australia from lightweight PVC, are in alternative material didgeridoos.

Agave

Agave didgeridoos are made from the flower stalk of the agave plant. The stalk only appears once the plant is 20 to 40 years old. After it flowers the plant dies, and the stalk is cut once the seed pods have opened. Our agave didgeridoos are handmade in Perth, Western Australia.

More about the didgeridoo

Read What is a didgeridoo?, What is a yidaki? or how old the didgeridoo is.

Want to know what a particular didgeridoo is made of, or who made it? Contact us. To see termite hollowed eucalyptus up close, browse our natural finish didgeridoos.