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Brief Communications

Nature 436, 39 (7 July 2005) | doi:10.1038/43639a; Published online 6 July 2005

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Acoustics:  The vocal tract and the sound of a didgeridoo

Alex Tarnopolsky1, Neville Fletcher1,2, Lloyd Hollenberg3, Benjamin Lange1, John Smith1 & Joe Wolfe1

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Acoustic measurements show how a player can extract a range of timbres from this primitive instrument.

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The Australian didgeridoo (or yidaki in the Yolngu language of northern Australia) is a simple musical instrument that, at the lips of an experienced player, is capable of a spectacular variety of timbres — considerably greater than those that can be coaxed from orchestral instruments, for example. To understand this phenomenon, we simultaneously measured the sound produced by the didgeridoo and the acoustic impedance of the player's vocal tract. We find that the maxima in the envelope of the sound spectrum are associated with minima in the impedance of the vocal tract, as measured just inside the lips. This acoustic effect is similar to the production of vowel sounds made during human speech or singing1, although the mechanism is different, and leads to the surprising conclusion that experienced players are subconsciously using their glottis to accentuate the instrument's tonal variation.

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