Introduction

A musical instrument offers a special kind of materials memory, in its dual capacity of a physical body and its embodied acoustic identity. As a cultural .product and also a tool to articulate cultural meaning through repeated sound, an instrument becomes a privileged site for retaining cultural memory (Qureshi 1997:4).

What does [setting a record for the most didjeridus played at one time] mean? For Aboriginal people here in Maningrida [in northern Australia] it is a big mystery. The question they ask is, 'why do Balanda [European] people get so obsessed with one musical instrument'? Someone made the analogy: 'How would Balanda feel if Aboriginal people suddenly adopted the French Hom as a religious icon and everyone started ordering them from Darwin and playing them at home around @he campfire'? (Garde 1997a).

For me, the didjeridu is a tool that enables you to contact a hicher force ... Playing the instrument, circula-r breathin- enables me to contact my higher force; self, God, Budda, call it what you like.Western people are still searching, searching, searching. They've forgotten it's within. That's what I love about the didjeridu. I sit and play and I tap into my self. For the people I might be doing a didjeridu healing session with, it enables them to feel that sound wave energy, which allows them to tap into self (Brosnan 1997a).

In this article I examine two case studies of an old instrument being used in new contexts. The didjeridu dates back at least fifteen hundred years before present in northern Australia (Chaloupka 1993). In the last several decades, however, it has come to be used globally and nationally in ways fallin- outside the parameters of local, "traditional" Aboriginal musical, sociocultural, and spiritual practice (Neuenfeldt 1997). The contexts chosen for examination are spectacle and therapy, in which didjeriduists and their audiences or clients consociate in practices revolving around notions of the 'curious'. I intentionally use the word curious in quotation marks in the title of this article. The practices can be interpreted as curious in several cognate definitions: curio, 19th centur-y term for an art object; curiosity, the desire to know; and, curious, odd and surprising.1 For some mainly non-Aboriginal people, the didjeridu is an art object. For others, it and Aboriginal culture are things they desire to know about. And for still others, it and Aboriginal culture are odd and surprising.

I argue Feld's (1994) formulation of a process of "schizophonia to schismogenesis" for sounds, can also be applied to musical instruments. Similar to sounds, musical instruments can be: "split from their sources, (and] that splitting is dynamically connected to escalating cycles of distorting mutuality, which in turn [are] linked to polarizing interpretations of meaning and value" (Feld 1994:289). The dissemination and evolution of the didjeridu provides an instructive example of the movement of a musical instrument from

local to national and global contexts in a relatively short period of time. Some mutations in its uses are open to distortions of its original meaning and value. These lead potentially to polarised interpretations of what constitutes appropriate use.

What is of general interest here is the interplay of the curious and the common in the rebirth, refashioning and recontextualisation of a particular musical instrument (or any musical instrument for that matter) which not only helps make music but also helps socially construct and culturally produce meaning and value for those who play it, make it and hear it. What is of a more specific interest is how didjeriduists (and manufacturers and retailers) are using the instrument in ways unforseen even a decade ago. However, these (sometimes controversial) appropriations by primarily non-Aboriginal didjeriduists are not totally unexpected. There is a long history of Western fascination with whatever instrument or music is faddish at the time;2 and a concon-Litant tendency to mythologise and commoditise them through paradoxical - and at times conflated - processes of homage and exploitation, which in these contexts verge on what Rosaldo (1989) terms 'imperialist nostalgia', the pining after of what one has helped to destroy, sometimes unintentionally. Regardless of the often problematic nature of these processes, the didjeridu has become one instrument with many voices (Hayward and Neuenfeldt 1997). In doing so, it has become a musical ingredient in the events and adventures of Western culture (Binas 1997), although in a sometimes equivocal relationship with its Abori-inal origins. Its trajectory as an instrument, icon and industry is both reflected and shaped by indeterminant cultural appropriations operating globally (Ziff and Rao 1997).

There are several important caveats to note at the outset. First, although some Abor-iginal people are involved, the new contexts examined here are primarily non- I000 Aboriginal and, aside from rural festivals, urban phenomena. Second, not all didjeriduists subscribe to the view there is an inherent interconnectedness between the physical and spiritual effects of sound, such as privileged in some "New Age" philosophies and therapeutic practices. And third, there is a danyer that what can be interpreted in one generation as 'curious' can be catastrophic in effect in another; if, for example, twenty years from now people assume erroneously the didjeridu was always used in spectacle and therapy.

Case Study 1: Spectacle

The following news report appeared in Nletboume's The Herald Sun with an accompanying photograph:

Day for Blow-ins:3 Another world record for Melbourne. This time it's the most didger-idoos played at the same venue at once. A total of 153 didgeridoo players set the record yesterday at the Aborigine Advancement League Centre, Thombury, as part of Didgfest '97. Curiously, there were few Aboriginal players (emphasis added 1997:6) 4

This case study focuses on why, ostensibly, so few Aboriginal didjeriduists (or conversely so many non-Aboriginal ones) participated in setting an "official" world record registered with the Guinness Book of Records. It examines how the didjeridu, the most iconic musical instrument of one of the world's oldest extant cultures, is being used in Australia in the new context of spectacle. Spectacle is used in the general sense of something on public show, something expressed on a large-scale using sight and/or sound, and something cultural done to excess.5 I am also using it in the more specific sense of the "spectacle of the Other'; that is, how the representational practices of stereotyping are used in mainstream media to foreground racial and ethnic "difference" (Hall 1997:225). For analytical and heuristic purposes I am making an implicit but not essentialistic distinction between Aboriginal and non-Abor-iginal uses of the didjeridu. A similar distinction holds between the social and si-ns of the social because Aborigines and non-Aborigines may bring distinct cultural logics, world views and historical experiences to the instrument and their musical, sociocultural and spiritual practices. Consequently, what is considered curious or not curious about each others practices, can differ depending of individuals' and groups' backgrounds and intentions.

It is my purpose here to speculate on some of the possible reasons why it may not be curious the journalist reported there were (supposedly) few Aboriginal people participating. Examining some of these reasons provides pertinent background information not only relevant to the didjeridu as it is currently being used in spectacle and therapy. It is also relevant to its multifaceted roles as an instrument usually associated with Aborigines, who as a group of citizens are positioned within Australian society in a particular way. An understanding of this positioning is vital for appreciating at a macro level how far the instrument has moved out from "traditional" practice.6 It is also vital for appreciating at a micro level the significance, or insignificance, of setting a world record (or holding a festival such as Didgfest).

One possible reason few Abori-inal people may have participated is demographic. Aborigines make up approximately 2% of Australia's population. Proportionally, out of the 153 didjeriduists we could have expected 3 Abori-ines. Given Aborigines are the most disadvantaged group in Australian society (with a life expectancy of up to 20 years less than for non-Aborigines and abnormally hi-h incarceration rates for juveniles), there n-d-ht not have been as many potential older and younger participants (Johnston 1991). These factors impact on man different areas of Aboricinal life chances and intercultural interactions y tD, within Australian society. As well, cender restrictions could mitigate against Aboriginal women participating (Barwick 1997).7

Another possible reason is locational. Although the event took place on the grounds of an Aboriginal Organisation (the Aborigine Advancement League Centre), historically the didjeridu was not a part of the musical practice of Aboriginal groups in what is now known as Victoria. Genocide, ethnocide and the wholesale dispossession of land destroyed or debilitated many cultural practices all across southern Australia, including music. The situation in northern Australia was somewhat different (if no less traumatic) but many more cultural practices have survived in their "traditional" forms in the didjeridu's tropical homeland areas.8 It has only been in the last several decades what was originally primarily a northern instrument has been more commonly used by Aborigines in southern Australia as a pan-Aboriginal instrument.9

Yet another possible reason why the journalist may have reported there were few Aboriginal players is stereotyping. There is a long history in Australia of official and unofficial classifications of Aborigines based on how they took, as well as on how they act. These arose out of a governmental - and societal - obsession with supposed degrees of racial purity" (Kidd 1997), often linked to phenotypic markers such as skin colour, physique and facial features, along with cultural markers.10 These stereotypes were, and still are, connected to widespread and erroneous notions of what often is simplistically dichotomised as 'real'/'traditional" and 'unreal'/"urban or rural" Aborigines (Cowlishaw 1987) within the available discourses on Aboriginality (Muecke 1982).Il Even the official definition of Aboriginality is not as much racial as social, with descent, self-identification or community recognition as legitimating criteria (Langton 1993). Of course, as well as being predicably incorrect, stereotyping serves to deny individuality and the normal range of diversity and difference within any human population.

Because of these prevalent, and politicised, negative stereotypes, there may well have been numerous Aborigines participating in the event. However, for a tabloid journalist, and by inference the newspaper's readership and editors, they may not have fitted the historical (and racialised) stereotype of what a "real" Aborigine should look like: a nearly naked, coal black "Noble Savage" leaning on a spear, carrying a boomeran and 9 gazing off into the empty desert; and perhaps, in a more updated version, also playing a didjeridu decorated with a dot painting. 12 These romanticised but retrograde stereotypes are not relics of the 19th century. They are still ubiquitous in touristic representations, and unfortunately, Australian political rhetoric. In the latter case, fuelled by a well funded and malicious anti-Aboriginal industry ali-ned with conservative politicians and vested interests in the media, mining, farming and pastoral sectors. 13 The cultural politics of representation are polarised and polemical in contemporary Australia, as in the past (Langton 1993).

A final possible reason few Aboriginal players may have been present is both musical and cultural. In northern Australia in ceremonial contexts such as the performance of clan songs, there is only one didjeriduist, who performs with a clapstick player and, most importantly, a songman (Knopoff 1997, 1992). The thought of several, let alone 153, did.eridus played simultaneously would be considered ridiculous by some Aborigines. Garde (1997b) recounts that while recently recording "traditional" music performance near Maningrida in the Northern Territory (two son-men, a didjeridu player and dancers): 14 "The songman had been workin- on improvements to two didjeridus (sandpapering, putting an extension on one and painting another). Two younc, didjeridu players each picked one up to test them out and started blowing at the same time, unintentionally. They both lasted about ten seconds and both collapsed in lauchter saying in the Kune languace for a joke Hey, let's play them together at the same time, two didjeridus'! At this everyone lauahed as if it was the biggest joke: 'Imagine that, two didjeridus, how ridiculous"'. In other music performance contexts, such as Aboriginal popular music ensembles, the didjeridu is generally part of the rhythm section, adding a distinct timbre to the soundscape which is identifiable as 'Aboriginal' (Dunbar-Hall 1997). However, the musicality of 153 didjeridus played simultaneously is debatable, given the didjeriduists were playing different fundamental notes and overtones, had varying levels of ability, and were, in essence, ad- libbing. Given all these reasons, it is not at all curious the journalist stated so few Aborigines participated, or at least those visibly identifiable as the certain kind of stereotyped Aboriginal Australian she/he was expecting to see (and hear). Without them participating (at least in large numbers given some Aborigines did), the record and the event were somehow less spectacular, and thus less valid. A peculiar "failure even in success" kind of representation is not uncommon in media reports on supposedly "Aboriginal' events. For example, another Melbourne newspaper reported on the same event: "Didgfest [971: Melbourne didgeridoo players attempted to set a world record - and get into the Guinness Book of Records - for having the greatest number of people playing the didgeridoo at one place and time. The Thombury attempt gained 153 participants, failing short of the unofficial record of 240 players in London in the early 1990s" (7he Age, 1997:4). Such ambivalent reportage leaves it unclear whether the journalist is dispensing compliments or criticisms.

None of the media reports (print and television) commented on the music being played while setting the record. What was important, and newsworthy, was the spectacle of so many didjeridus being played at one time. The music was irrelevant except as a eacophonic soundtrack for the spectacle, perhaps because the didjeridu is perceived as being more . about spectacle (or Aboriginality or Australian identity), rather than music or musicianship. As far back as 1894 didjeridu music was described as a "rude burlesque of music' (Etheridge 1894). Hypothetically, some modem day detractors in the anti-Abor-iginal industry might similarly argue: 'the didjeridu is a 'simple' hollow log, from a 'simple' people, so how complex or musical can it ever really be"? (An argument which is increasingly problematic when there are increasingly more non-Aboriginal than Aboriginal didjeriduists.) What takes precedence in the reportage, therefore, is spectacle: musically mediated exotica, much like the novelty value of the instrument in entertainer Rolf Harris' music and comedy routines,15 or its gratuitous and at times grotesque use in newspaper photographs where there is often little obvious connection with what is being reported aside from a stereotyped connection to something "Abori-inal".16 Seemingly, the didjeridu only has media value if it spectacularises the Other (Hall 1997) whilst misappropriating the aural and visual iconography of the instrument.

Case Study 2: Therapy

This case study focuses on how the didjeridu is being used in therapy, which encompasses the curative aspects and procedures of the healin- arts. It examines the practices, explanations and understandings of Ntichael Brosnan, an experienced practitioner, providing insights on how the didieridu is not only being used but also theorised in a new context. As well, it examines his perceptions of the benefits for both the didjeriduist and the client receiving therapy, who are involved in a particular kind of symbiotic, dialogic relationship. There is no intention here to pass judgement on the efficacy of didjeridu therapy or the nature of the practitioner's intentions. Neither is there the intention to accept uncritically what are personalised and thus rationalised perspectives. Consequently, general questions will be raised about aspects of Brosnan's practices and their theorisation. The general interest is in how a practitioner's therapeutic uses are informed by personal experiences and other discourses of healing and more specifically how the didjeridu, Aboriginal culture, music and sound are integrated into the therapy equation.

Academic music researchers have delved into the use of specific instruments, sounds or vocal techniques in healing practice, often inquisitive about how music informs cultural notions of illness and health (Sasamori 1997, Pinto 1997, Nfoffitt Cook 1997, Larco 1997, Langenberg 1997, Amir 1997, Laderman & Roseman 1996, Fn'edson 1996, Li 1992, Roseman 1991, Seeger 1988, Basso 1984). Baumann (1997:7-8) suc,,,ests healing practices, when viewed in a transcultural perspective, can be placed within three broad categories. The first two categories are 'active-reproducing' music therapy (the actual doing of music and believing it is efficacious) and 'passive-receptive' music therapy (the experiencing of music in a particular cultural, spiritual or cognitive rn@ieu). Although seemingly antithetic, these two approaches are often complimentary in practice. The third category can be characterised as a more 'physical' interpretation, the cultural perception of sound as vibrations which can have healing effects. This is the least empirically tested although it has a long historical tradition, for example in Hinduism and Buddhism. There is also a sizeable Popular literature on the role of sound in music therapy (Dewhurst-Maddock 1993, Goldman 1992, Campbell 1991, Diallo and Hall 1989).

In an Australian context, whether or not the didjer-idu was routinely used for healing in "traditional' Aboriginal groups is open to conjecture. The historical record and much contemporary research suggests therapeutic use, as understood in a Western sense, was/is not common (Turner 1997, Barwick 1997, Garde 1997c).The more general use of sound (in the form of son-) to empower healing substances is noted on Groote Eylandt off the eastern coast of Arnhem Land (Turner 1997).17 However, there is specific mention in north east Arnhem Land of the use of the didjeridu in healing among particular Yolngu (Yunupingu 1997); 18 and in north central Arnhem Land on the use of a "trumpet" in the Mumginn myth' of the Wawilak women with what could be interpreted as vitalising effects (Warner 1969:240-249).19 Because Aboriginal culture is not monolithic, contrary to stereotypes, such variations may be examples of the quite specific cultural practices found among different groups, even when living in relative proximity. The didjer-idu's therapeutic use by Aborigines in non-"traditional" areas of Australia is uncommon, although instances have been documented (Sowelu 1996). Its therapeutic use by non-Aboriginal people in Australia and Europe is documented by various researchers who note It is often enmeshed in or marketed as part of what is commonly considered "New Ace" spirituality (Sherwood 1997, St. John 1997, Mago,.A,-an 1997, Priest 1996, Willis 1994, Schellber- 1993). In these latter contexts, the issue of appropriation is intecral to debates about whether the practices are homage or exploitation.

Non-Aboriginal didjeriduists in Australia and elsewhere are increasingly using the instrument therapeutically. Concerns about the nature of the appropriation have been raised by both Aborigines and non-Aborigines about this facet of the didjeridu's dissemination and evolution. In Australia, the didjeridu was used by non-Aboriginal people for "sonic massages" at the 1995 Woodford Maleny Folk Festival. In such a context, the Aboricinal co-director Walbira Gindin accused "hippies" of: "plundering Aboriginal culture to use in their new-age religion industry" (Priest 1996: 1). She was also upset non-Aboriginal women were playing publicly. Regarding the appropriation of only parts of Aboriginal culture, Gindin felt: "they don't want to just observe and watch it, they want to take it for themselves ... They say we should be flattered by them Mimicking (Aboriginal culture] but I certainly don't find it flattering. You can't just take bits of it - you must take up our politics and our beliefs' (Priest 1996: 1). In Britain, Ed Oxley (Awaye 1997), one of the organisers of 1997 workshops on didjeridu playing and Aboricinal culture, observed: "There is a lot of [New Age] rubbish made up about the didjer-idu over here'. He questioned the sincerity of people setting themselves up as "didjeridu healers" and cautioned: "it's bogus, it needs to be exposed and certain standards need to be set'. Oxley noted many music festivals in Britain, such as Glastonbury, contain 'pseudo/quasi religious cults" centred on the didier-idu. However, he feels strongly: "Anything that distorts people's understanding of the realities of the instrument and the people who created it endangers [its appropriate use]", even' when well meaning.

Notwithstanding such incidents and concerns about appropriation, one particular methodology which provides insights into the epistemology and phenomenology of therapeutic practice is 'didjeridu resonance therapy' (henceforth DRT), a term coined by Michael Brosnan (1997b). While his observations are not intended as statistically representative of all practitioners, he does have wide ranging and relevant experiences.

Brosnan has played didjeridu for 14 years in diverse social, cultural and musical contexts and recently completed a Certificate in Indigenous Therapies in the We Ali Program at Central Queensland University (Rockhampton Campus). He has used didjeridu resonance therapy in a range of situations and with a range of people. As a non-Aboriginal didjeriduist, he is also acutely aware of the ever present spectre of misappropriation of the didjeridu (such as noted above) and the need to act with sensitivity and an awareness of protocols within the often quarrelsome intra and inter-cultural and musical politics of Australia (Gummow 1998).

Brosnan first started playing the didjeridu in 1984 at Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory when employed as a tour guide. He recalls: 'It took me many years to actually play it well. It's very important you learn how to technically play the instrument with your breathing' (Brosnan 1997a). He also acknowledges an extramusical aspect of the didjeridu identified as "the traditional Law sense", which he categorises as "a respect for Aboriginal culture and how they keep the didjeridu in context'. Brosnan maintains the didjeridu has been used traditionally as a healing instrument in some Aboriginal cultures, a view at variance with Turner (1997:235) but in agreernent with Yunupingu (1997:viii).

He contends the therapeutic reasoning underlying DRT is: "every organ, bone and tissue in the body, has a resonating frequency at which it normally vibrates. When dis-ease sets in, the vibrations in that part of the body become unbalanced." What the resonance produced by the didjeridu can do is envelop the whole body, re-aligninc, and equalisin- the flow of energies. This he compares to 'a massage at the atomic and molecular level". The vertebrae of the spine are important because they are "exceptional sound resonators", capable of picldna, up sound vibrations and transmitting them along nerve pathways to all the organs and tissues. The goal of DRT is to harmonise the body back to its "natural resonating frequency'.

Further to this, Brosnan contends it is the combination of the practitioner's directed thought and the didjeridu's resonating frequency which can create "healing of a high degree'. He feels "depending on where the practitioner's awareness is placed when he creates a certain sound [on the didjeridu], the sound will carry inforrnafion of that state to the client receiving it". Therefore it is important the practitioner's own thou-hts focus on good health, harmony and balance because those are what will be conveyed to the client. Brosnan claims a symbiotic, dialo-ic convergence between practitioner and client is the point where 'channelling of the divine power of sound begins". If they both open themselves up to it, 'our inner self naturally aligns and becomes one with the Creator". In regard to Aboriginal healing practices, Brosnan comments: 'Unbeknownst to many people, the most important function of healing in Abori-inal Australia, is not so much to cure the sick, but to keep people well”.20

The actual procedure used during a a forty to sixty minute DRT session is 'to have the client lie down on their back and then give a brief intro to DRT. The C didjeridu mostly used [made by well known maker Djalu Gurruwiwi from Arnhem Land], is over six feet in length with quite a large diameter bell at the bottom. It's a very earthy, strong toned instrument". Sitting down, Brosnan places it approximately six to twelve inches behind the client's head, and then gently starts playing. He monitors closely the client's reaction and if their breathing quickens or there is any sign of discomfort he will pull back. Importantly, once a comfortable distance, tone and speed is established he strives to withdraw his own involvement: 'to allow the channelling to happen, to allow the natural energy to come through me, through the didjeridu to the client receiving". Brosnan notes each client responds differently: 'It's the individual's experience of picking up those sound vibrations and how they relate to it, that's the beautiful thing about it. Everybody's going to respond in a different way to where they are as a being in that moment of time".

Brosnan contends the different notes produced by different didjeridus can be connected to particular chak-ras. He considers chakras to be "energy centres": "the primary mediators of all energy within the body and that coming into it. They mediate the electromagnetic and other subtle energy pulses of our energy system. They take our energy expressions and assist the body in distributing them for our various physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual functions".21 Although Brosnan now uses only the one C didjeridu, in the past he experimented with using different keyed didjeridus for the various chakras.

One of Brosnan's initial experiences with DRT was at the Yulara tourist resort near to Uluru/Ayers Rock in the Central Desert. He observes: 'I don't know what they expected to get out of it but what was interesting was that whoever they were, whatever race, creed or colour, they always had a profound positive experience". DRT seemed to be acting at a very deep, almost molecular level: "It does get right down into your self, that's where it touches. And if the individual is able to respond to that self, then they do have a moving experience'. However, he stresses: "I'm not touching them, I'm not doing anything [tactile]. It's a pure exchange of sound wave energy, that's the healing'. He concludes the onus is on the client to judge for themselves the nature of the experience.

After doing hundreds of DRT sessions, Brosnan observes: "I've never had any one get a negative reaction where I've had to stop ... I've never had anybody 'freak out' in a session ... It's not desi-ned to be harmful. Once you tap in with that pure energy, it actuau y calms'. He stresses also the importance of intuiting a client's reactions on more than just a physical level: "Althou-h I'm monitoring visually I'm also monitoring on a feeling level, C) and this ties in with Aboriginal Law and a respect for the culture. Aboriginal people work on a feelino, level. I'm not setting myself up to say I am there at that Aboricinal level, but I am me. And in what I do [with the didjeridul, I have that respect there for Aboricinal culture".

Brosnan considers DRT to be mutually beneficial: "We didjeridu plavers get the best hit of all because we're the ones doin- the breathin-, we're the ones maldng the connection between the natural forces of the universe, from the Creator to the client'. He considers himself a 'middleman', with circular breathing providing the crucial link: 'To sit playing for one hour and just do slow controlled circular breathing without any [animal] calls or anything else, that's very powerful for me. It takes me to another plane of awareness'. He concludes the effect of prolonged circular breathing is similar to hyperventilating: 'You don't need drugs or alcohol when you play didjeridu ... After an hour of Cdoinc, DRQ, I'm absolutely stoned from the breathin- and from the channelling of that pure ener-y. It makes you you humble, honoured. And that's a great feeling, a beautiful feeling. 22

Regardless of the purported benefits of DRT, there are still contentious issues surrounding appropriation which remain perhaps unresolvable for Brosnan and other solicitous practitioners. A major one is the acceptability of non-Aboriginal people not only using it therapeutically but playing it at all. Brosnan admits: "I've strug-led for man years y being a whitefelia playing the didjeridu, even thou-h I've had more adverse reaction from non-Abori inal people than I 've had from Aboriginal people". He offers two pertinent 9 observations on the dynamics of appropriation. One is: "Aboriginal people are feeling people and as long as your heart is in the right place and you treat the instrument with respect and dignity and have respect for the people and their culture, once they feel that, it's ok'. Another is: 'Whitefellas are caught up in the faddism of the didjeridu. Not all, but there's definitely a level of that out there. And I just put that simply down to not having the knowledge yet, not having the respect for the culture and the instrument". Brosnan concedes that using the instrument will probably remain problematic. Nonetheless, he has accepted the situation because: "it just comes down to self, and who you are and where you're sitting with the issue of using the didjeridu [in therapy]. And that's ok because I'm at peace with who I am, how I play the instrument, and what I use it for".

By way of critique, there are questions which can be raised about some of the main points Brosnan either identifies or implies. They sugcest alternative possibilities to what are, after all, the perspectives of a sin-le (althouch well informed, experienced) practitioner. The questions are not directed at him personally but rather to the kinds of practices arising from the movement of an instrument away from its source into other realms of musical, sociocultural and spiritual life. He (and his very personalised, rationalised perspectives) serve as a cipher for broader processes and underlying issues of appropriation and how individuals work out them out in practice. In approximate sequential order, do Brosnan's personal experiences and empathy with and knowledge of Aboriginal culture automatically enable him to speak authoritatively? Is he speaking about Aboriginal people or with them? What empirical evidence is there the body's parts have a 'resonating frequency" at which they vibrate? Can healing take place even if there is no symbiotic, dialogic convergence between the practitioner and the client? Will using the "wrong" sound (or didjeridu) on a chakra promote dis-ease? If it is the client's responsibility to determine the nature of the experience, what conscious role can the practitioner play? Is there an inherent connection between a knowledge of Aboricinal Law and being able to intuit non-Aboricinal (or Aboriginal) physical and psychological responses? If circular breathing itself can promote a trance-like state, why not dispense with the practitioner entirely and just have clients self- administer therapy? Is DRT more about meta-meanings than specific ones and is music as sound thus beyond measurable meaning?

In reply, Brosnan might well suggest his use of the didjeridu in therapv is a conscious attempt to transcend the epistemologies and phenomenolo-ies underlying the questions. Such a reply would fit within Strathem's (1988) identification of the pro-cess by which individuals try to overcome the isolation of the 'dividuated' self by drawing on other cultures (such as of Indigenous peoples) and their spiritual (or at least communal) practices, in order to reconnect with a sense of their own physical (and social) selves, a process specifically identified by Sherwood (1997) for "alternative lifestyle" didjer-iduists. What Brosnan and other practitioners appear to be negotiating (with varying decrees of sensitivity and background knowled-e) is the tr-anscultural transposition of didjeridu practice from its externally orientated, communal role in "traditional' Abori-inal culture to the more internally orientated, individualised search for wholeness widespread in Western non- Aboriginal culture in Australia and elsewhere.

As exhibited in the ethnographic data, Brosnan's practice, and clients' avowed reception, contain elements of the three categories identified by Baumann (1997:7-8). Because DRT is the doing of music based on a belief it works, it is 'active-reproducing" music therapy. Because it encourages an experience of music with at least some recognition of the sociocultural, spiritual and cognitive milieu from which it arose, it is 'passive- receptive" music therapy. Because it privileges a perception of sound as "a kind of ethereal energy form with healing effects' (Baumann 1997:7), it is a "physical" interpretation. Practitioners such as Brosnan, who have some knowled-e of and respect for Aboriginal culture, are likely to be better placed to use the didjeridu in therapy at least with an awareness of what might constitute appropriate use. Nonetheless, Garde's comments in the opening quotation on the inexplicability for some Aboriginal people of non-Aboriginal uses in new contexts, point out there are different world views and cultural logics operating and these need to be researched further to situate therapeutic practices more specifically within the global cultural politics of appropriation.

Discussion

To return to the definitions noted earlier, the setting of an 'official" world record at Didgfest 97 and the didjeridu's applications in therapy, are directly connected to notions of the instrument as a curio, a collectible art object. Such notions are rooted in an extant but often unexaniined bundle of attitudes towards Aborigines which arose in the 19th century (and earlier) as the result of European Australians' need to condone conquest and rationalise racism. These attitudes were embedded in concepts such as the "great chain of being', the of survival of the fittest', and the 'whiteman's burden", which all contributed to the supposedly altr-uistic/idealistic but ultimately devastatin- effects of colonisation. These concepts were applied equally to Abor-ioines as human bein-s and their metaphysical and material culture. Based on such hierarchised and technologised criteria, the didjeridu as a simple, Aboriginal musical instrument would (and did) rank lowly.

Today, however,hundreds of thousands of didjeridus are manufactured yearly in Australia (by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artisans) and sold primarily to tourists or exported. There were hundreds of didjeridus of various styles and quality bein- played and marketed at Didgfest 97 as part of not only the spectacle of the Other but also the consumption of the Other. As well, the 153 didjer-idus used in setting the record would have found their way to Nielboume through complex networks of production, distribution, and marketing. These crisscross Australia and reach overseas to North America, Europe and Asia. In touristic contexts, especially in the retail sector, there is a strong identification of the didjeridu as primarily a curio, as a collectable ethnographic artefact (much like a boomerang or dot painting). This is especially so because many consumers will never play it but rather hang it on the wall or stand it in the comer as mute testimony of a "fourth world" touristic experience in a "first world" country. Therapeutic uses such as Brosnan's also revolve to some extent on the notion of the didjeridu as a curio, in the sense of a healing art object. They are perhaps based less on notions of it bein- a curio than in spectacle. However, it is recognised and marketed b some practitioners (and many New Aue y recordings and books) as an esoteric therapeutic toot for promoting healing through sound and reconnecting to self and community using often simplified and thus distorted 'essences' of Aboriginality.

The uses in new contexts also contain notions of curiosity because some people involved have a genuine desire to know more about Aboriginal culture and people and perhaps think using the didjeridu may gain them some insights and knowledge. There were Aborigines running workshops, performing at concerts and selling instruments at Didgfest 97 (as well as,participadng in setting the record), but how much one-to-one intercultural interaction took place amidst the spectacle is difficult to gauge. That is, if one can presume there are inherent cultural differences between people who appear outwardly to be Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal Australians. Use in therapy outside of "traditional" settings is primarily by non-Aborigines. As Brosnan's exegesis reveals, there is an underlying, almost ineffable curiosity to gain insights into meanings and values Aborigines are alleged to possess which modem cultures and societies have forgotten, or forgotten how to remember. The didjeridu becor-nes idealized as an aid for remembering, an allegedly empowered and empowering connection between not only Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, but also between (more grandiosely and inclusively) the past and present, and the self and the COSMOS.

And finally, the uses in new contexts all contained notions of the curious in the sense of odd and surprising, at least for some people. Why participants at Didgfest 97 wanted or needed to participate in a spectacle to set a world record struck some observers as puzzling verging on bizarre. From a musical let alone a sociocultural point of view, why did 153 didjeriduists feel compelled to improvise and perform a "song' no one knew, which in fact had not yet been (and probably never would be) written? Several prominent Aboriginal (and non-Aboriginal) didjeriduists at Didgfest 97 conspicuously avoided participating, although nearby. When told about what had happened, several asked not only 'why?" but also "what can be next?'. One Aboriginal didjeriduist went so far as to say: "If I wanted to be a clown, I would have joined the circus". These kind of remarks can be interpreted as polite but pointed commentary on whether setting a world record for massed didjeridus is homage or exploitation - or an exercise in imperialist nostalgia. In therapy, Brosnan's observations highlight that what could be classified by some people as either an odd or surprising use, can be the opposite to a practitioner (and the client receiving the therapy). It has an internal logic based on an underlying supposition that the didjeridu, Aboriginal culture, music and sound all have the potential to heal and possibly transform both individual and group consciousness. Perhaps because sound-based therapy is outside many peoples' experience of the healing arts, it is not necessarily a case of it being without meaning and value. It may be more a case of it bein- w,ithout precedence, and without the top-down, druc-based institutionalisation of healinc, which is the antithesis of a self driven, non-drug model espoused by some practitioners and desired by some clients.

Conclusion

Feld's (1994) formulation of a process of "schizoponia to schismogenesis', about how sounds can become distorted when split from their sources, can help understand some of the broad processes at work in the case studies examined and discussed here. I propose an analogous process is at work in the dissemination and evolution of instruments like the didjeridu which produce the sounds (and the "good vibrations"?) which currently circulate in the global culture economy (Appadurai 1990), in particular in aenres such as New Age and worldbeat music.23 For whatever reason, they tap into consumers' quests for the curious", be it in spectacle or therapy.24 For better or worse, the didjeridu is now enmeshed in the global cultural politics of appropriation and sometimes only tangentially connected to music and its use solely as a musical instrument. It is now a political and economic instrument as well. Spectacle and therapy are two cogent examples of the splitting of the didjeridu (and its sounds) from its natal source, the distorting mutuality of its use in new contexts, and the 'curious" practices which result. It remains equivocal if they constitute homage or exploitation. However, in Australia debates about appropriation are increasingly polarised as cultural politics becomes one of several sites of contention for the broader issues being debated, such as human rights and land rights.

Because Michael Brosnan has been involved as a musician/entertainer and a healing practitioner with didjer-idu use in both spectacle and therapy, he is in a unique position to make linkages between the practices. When asked to comment about the setting of the "world record' for massed didjeridus, he replied: "The sense of doing things on a big scale reminds me of Captain Cook's arrival in Australia. The British come over to Australia, they see something they like, they want to possess it, they want to use it, they want to abuse it. For what? For their own pleasure, for their own self gain. Let's not dilute [Aboriginal] culture. Let's remember where the didjeridu comes from, let's remember who it really belongs to, and let's have respect for that notion. The didjeridu has healing potential that comes from the deeper sense of all knowing. And when you apply that in a therapeutic environment, it has the ability to take the client receiving it, as well as the practitioner, back to self. And that's what 1, and we, need. For me [setting a world record] takes the sacredness out of the didjeridu. It takes the respect, it takes the dignity out of the real core essence. I think of something like 153 out-of-key didjeridus as yet another example of whitefelia ignorance. Besides, it sounds awful" (Brosnan 1997a).

Perhaps what is considered 'curious" remains quintessentially cultural and thus rarely reflected on objectively. To risk a truism, what is curious for one culture (or person) can be common for another. Making a distinction between homaoe and exploitation in spectacle and therapy is perhaps too subtle, too opaque or too provisional to be critically considered by most participants. It is more often than not ignored or elided, even if reflected on, because to do so risks exposing the many inconsistencies and contradictions informing the process of appropriation and the workings of nostal-ia. As the didjeridu is disseminated and evolves, and continues to be inserted into new contexts and takes on new uses, the combination of the curious and the commonplace will provide further research opportunities for understanding better how musical instruments make much more than music an when they help make meaning.

Notes 1 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1964:299

2 The sitar, ukulele, pan pipes and "thumb" pianos (mbiras) are examples of other "exotic" instruments which have had periods of popularity in the West in the last thirty years. They can still be heard live, synthesised or sampled in numerous recordings and commercials.

3 In Australian English slang, "blow-in" is an often derogatory term referring to someone with only a short term connection to a place, thing, or event.

4 Didafest 97 was organised by Melbourne didjeridu enthusiast and music promoter Raymond Mow, an immigrant from South Africa. It had run previously in 1995 and 1996 (Smith and Neuenfeldt 1998). The festival features workshops taught by well regarded didjeriduists; vendors selling instruments and related paraphernalia; and a concert which highlights the didjeridu but also includes singing, percussion and instrumental ensembles.

5 For an insightful treatment of the sociology of spectacle, see Debord (1977).

6 Over the last decades, the didjeridu has become the main pan-Aboricinal musical instrument (Neuenfeldt 1997a).

7 See Barwick (1997) for an overview of views on gender taboos.

8 Moyle (1981) identifies the "Broome-Ingham Line" running west to east across approximately the northern one-third of Australia (Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland). South of the line the didjeridu was historically uncommon, although trumpet-like instruments were documented in the central desert region. This demarcation was partly ecological: north of the line there were termites to bore out eucalypt trees as well as growing conditions suitable for bamboo, which was used in some localities. See Stubington (1979), Jones (1967) and Wild (1987) for examinations of more 'traditional' uses of the didjeridu and Chaloupka (1993) for the dating of rock art depictions of didjeridus in northern Australia (Arnhem Land).

9 Ryan (1994) provides a useful account of the Koori music scene in Melbourne, including didjeridu use.

10 Haebich (1988) has documented that up until the 1970s, such phenotypic markers were regularly used by governments not only to separate Aboriginal children (sometimes permanently) from their families, but also to deter-mine whom a person could marry, how much education they could receive, where they could live, and how they could spend their money.

11 Muecke (1982) identifies the three available discourses of Aboriginality as the anthropological, the romantic and the racist.

12 The irony of the didjeridu being closely associated with mass tourism in the central desert region around Alice Springs and Uluru/Ayers rock is that it was historically not a usual part of local music traditions (Neuenfeldt 1997b).

13 Australia is currently engaged in acrimonious race-based debates about the general nature of human rights and more specifically about what claims and rights Indigenous Australians might have to lands not under free-hold title. Two legal decisions in the High Court (Mabo 1992 and Wik 1996) recognized some residual rights and thus potential claims. However, the present federal Coalition govemment (Liberal and National parties) is attempting to circumvent or overtum them. Reactionary Australian politicians (such as the current deputy prime minister Tim Fischer and former prime minister John Gorton) still promulgate negative and racialised stereotypes of Aborigines based on demonstrably ignorant yet electorally effective stereotypes. For example, they both recently belittled Aborigines for not having invented the wheel, overlooking essential factors such as the continent's lack of draft animals or some immanent need for Aborigines to use them (and the wheel) even if available.

14 Maningrida is a geographically (but not technologically) remote Aboriginal community in north central Arnhem Land in northern Australia. Didjeridus are made locally and successfully marketed globally via the Internet at: < http://www.pegasus.oz.au/-bawinanoa/didjeridut.html>.

15 Harris has recently revealed he did not play didjeridu on his early hit record "Sun Arise", which helped launch his career. Rather it was produced in the recording studio by several acoustic bassists bowing, a low note (E) in unison, setting up a drone sound. Harris admits, "everybody thought that was the didgeridoo. I never lied about it, but I didn't go around telling everybody it wasn't" (Sydnq Morning Herald 199'1: 13). In a more general context, Harris says his personal use of the didjeridu "is purely for 'colour' in his stage presentation and he professes to have NO profound knowledge or cultural interest other than that of the fascinating 'sound' it produces" (1994 personal communication).

16 The tableaus are often bizarrely posed with the didjeridu (and the didjeriduist) placed in musically impossible playing, positions. These are a modem day version of the ethnographically inaccurate colonial- era posed photos of understandably solemn looking , Aborigines pretending to use a hodoe-podge of artefacts pilfered from their supposedly "dying race" (See Webb 1995). 17 Turner comments in general terms about music (but not specifically the didjeridu): "Music does not heal the physically sick; it didn't in traditional Aboriginal culture, as far as I know. But music can be used to sing power into a substance (such as emu fat) which is then applied to the body' (1997:235).

18 Yunupingu writes: "Yolngu people have long recognised the healing powers of the Yidaki [didjeridul. Through the provision of exercises for breathing, the Yidald holds collective powers in the healing process. The sound transfers peaceful vibrations that penetrate the mind and create inner spiritual oneness in an individual or group. In some cases, the Yidaki is used for physical healing with the player concentrating his breath on an afflicted part of the patient's body' (1997:viii).

19 An excerpt from Warner's description of the Mumgin "Myth" of the Wawilak women says: 'At this time the ... totemic trumpet came out of the well and lay beside him [Wongar]. No one brought it out and no one blew it, but it sang out like it does now. The ... trumpet blew over the two women and their two sons. They were lying there like they had fainted. Some green ants came out then and bit the women and children. They jumped. The trumpet continued to walk around ... The women and children were alive again" (1969:247). Warner also notes the commemorative and initiative use of the 'trumpet in the Djungguan ceremony (1969:249-280). It is important to mention in both the content and the context of Warner's accounts that controversy arose in 1996 when excerpts from his book, Black Civilization: A Social History of an Australian Tribe, appeared on the Internet. It which published originally in 1937 based on field work amongst Aboriginal groups still living in the north central Arnhem Land area in the Northern Territory. The excerpts were broadcast in connection with a transnational didjeridu discussion group (http://www.mills.edu/LIFE/CCM/DIDJERIDU/index.htn-d). An Aboriginal heritage officer in Maningrida involved in the world-wide-web site operated by the Rawinanga Aboriginal Corporation (http://www.pegasus.oz.au/-bawinanga/welcome.html), came across restricted information and words and requested the offending materials be removed. An on-line debate ensued among the discussion group's participants about whether or not the offending materials should be removed. Some felt to do so was a form of censorship while others felt cultural if not personal etiquette required removal. Because some of the information and words being broadcast are restricted to initiated males, the presence of the materials on the Internet had the potential to cause hurt and embarrassment within the Aboriginal community, whose members use the Internet extensively as an "electronic keeping place" for cultural information and a means to market art works, including didjeridus (Danaja 1996). (As well, there are computerised data bases on art and craft imaoes, clan and site registries, and the Djomi Museum's collection catalogue.) The debate was lively with some recalcitrant members of the discussion group accusing others of ‘“political correctness” concerning Aboriginal and cultural copyright issues, which in the context of a didjeridu discussion group struck some observers as a peculiar (to the point of perverse) comment on the dynamics of appropriation.

20 Tumer contends in the specific context of Groote Eylandt where his research was based: "To the Aborigines music is associated primarily with emotional healing and well-being. Hence its importance alleviating grief [in mortuary ceremonies] and perhaps more importantly, in maintaining general well-being in those who are not themselves suffering, but who are spectators or even participants to the Songs of those who are" (1997:235).

21 Similar to an effect referred to by Turner (1997:15-16, 34-36) for didjer-idu and other sounds. As well as Moffitt Cook's (1997) specific examination of North Indian sacred music therapy, see Dewhurst-Maddock (1993:115-120) for a general discussion of the connection between chakras and sound and Schellberg (1993:59-78) for a more specific discussion of chakras in the context of didjeridu therapy.

22 The mentall-physical state attained by prolonged didjeridu playing has been characterised as one of "excited relaxation' (Weeks cited in Turner 1997:35). Similar characterisations have been offered by other didjeriduists (Neuenfeldt 1993). Tests on the physical effects of prolonged playing on didjeriduists have been conducted in the Department of Pulmonary and Physiology at Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital in Perth, Western Australia and await analysis.

23 The commodification and mythologising processes underlying the success of the world beat/music genre are particularly cogent in this instance because the genre is where didjeridu recordings and artists are often marketed.

24 Two other small scale but instructive spectacles bear noting. In June of 1997, didjeridu enthusiasts from around the globe played in rotation from east to west at sunrise on the day of the northern hemisphere's summer and southern hemisphere's winter solstices. Organising such a global event was facilitated by rapid contact via the Internet discussion group noted above in endnote number 19. In northern Queensland a pub in Mt. Carbine advertises and displays what locals reckon is the world's longest playable didjeridu (3.5 metres) (Navarre 1997:5 1).

Acknowledgments - Currently under construction