Milkayngu Mununggurr WORKSHOP 27

By Christian Som

As someone with a great interest in traditio-nal playing techniques, an instructional CDdealing with individual techniques is justwhat I've long been wishing for. Up to now,I've learnt everything I know from listening tocontemporary and older recordings of tradi-tional music and trying to imitate what Iheard. The rumours about a CD with “trad”lessons, which started to percolate throughsometime this year, have now become reali-ty. The first CD with step-for-step instructionshas appeared, featuring no less than Mil-kayngu Mununggurr. As Milkay is currently'out bush', I talked to Randy Graves, whoproduced the CD.

Well Randy, that definitely sounds like areally exciting project. Can you tell us a bitabout what triggered the whole idea?

It's such a great project to do that it didn't takemuch triggering! In 2003, I announced I was moving to Yirrkalato do a master's thesis about yidaki. Severalpeople asked me if I might continue my “YourDidjeridu Companion” instructional CD serieswith a “Your Yolngu Didjeridu Companion.” Ihad of course already thought of that, and theanswer was, “I'd love to, but we'll have to waitand see if it's meant to be.”

I think a big reason for the demand for this isDjalu's teaching CD's. They are great, butmany people complain that they can't reallylearn from them. I do know a handful of peoplewho have learned very successfully from Djalu'sCD's, but it does take a lot of work. Truthfully,that's a more Yolngu way to do it, but Yolnguwould start from the day they're born, andspeak the language that yidaki playing tonguemovements come from. For outsiders whowant to learn the style, a CD that breaks theplaying down to the basics first would be ahuge help. Once the fundamentals are under-stood, students will finally really be able tolearn from and appreciate Djalu's CD's. It's amatter of really understanding the vocabularyhe uses when he sings the rhythms. Then it allmakes sense. So that was one agenda for meto do this - to increase the appreciation for andusefulness of Djalu's CD's.

My original idea was to release it on my ownlabel as part of my series, but I knew therewould be difficulties in doing international bu-siness with Yolngu. Then not long before Icame to Yirrkala, Jeremy Cloake decided totake some time away and asked me to fill in asyidaki specialist at Buku-Larrnggay Mulka, theart centre in Yirrkala. I was hesitant at first, butdecided it would be the best thing to arrive andbecome a part of the community, interactingwith all the yidaki makers, rather than just showing up as the next in a long line of researchers with cameras and recordingequipment. I mentioned the CD idea to thecoordinator of the art centre, knowing that themoment I did, it would no longer be my pro-ject, but the art centre's, which is for the best.This CD which is about transmission of Yolnguknowledge from a Yolngu person is fully ownedby Yolngu, rather than an outside business.

Discussion as to who should be the teacherdidn't last very long. Milkayngu was the ob-vious choice, as someone who is both knownin the outside world and a respected player inArnhem Land, and as someone who is well-educated in English and experienced at com-municating with outsiders.

I brought it up with him soon after, and he waskeen to do it. He's a bit shy, but really wants toget out into the world as a yidaki teacher andperformer. He's sort of waiting by the phone tobe invited to events around the world. We'vehad two successful trips together in Australiaso far, but that's another story. Actually no - itis very related, as the bonding we did on thosetrips helped motivate us to work together to getthe project done.

Progress was slow, largely due to both of our

Milkayngu Mununggurr

Hard Tongue DidgeridooExercises in Northeast Arnhem Land Yidaki Style

busy schedules. One thing that ramped up theproject was the decision to make it a part of mythesis project. So I had to actually get it donewithin a certain timeline. Along the way I alsobecame officially hired as the art centre's As-sistant Coordinator, and the CD is being re-leased by the art centre, so it was a good wayto combine my day job with getting my thesisdone!

What is the consensus among Yolngu (ifat all?) about this instructional CD? Icould imagine that the idea of teachingWesterners is not really approved by everyone.

I can't say I've talked to everyone here in North-east Arnhem Land about it, and probably thefew who would object are people I don't seemuch of. I am trying to reach as many pointsof view for my master's project as possible, butI have yet to find any negative opinions on theCD.

For one thing, the CD actually isn't very inter-esting for Yolngu. Many see that we're workingon a project with Milkayngu teaching yidakiand get excited. Then they hear the repetitiveexercises that are targeted at non-Yolngu play-ers and they get bored. They'd rather just hearsome really good playing or some super secretflashy techniques. But instead they hear thebasics that they already know, and that are all

they need to know to develop their own supersecret flashy techniques if they practiceenough. So while this CD should be a huge re-velation to outside didge players wanting tolearn Yolngu style, it's really not very interest-ing at all to Yolngu, so they would hardly botherobjecting.

As for the whole concept of outsiders learningyidaki, out here away from the cities, I havenever heard an Aboriginal Person say that non-Aboriginals should not play didge at all. If someone shows up here playing non-Yolngustyles, Yolngu don't tend to be impressed, butdon't condemn it either. But if you show thatyou've been trying to play “properly,” the Yoln-gu way, then Yolngu are impressed and en-courage you. There are however some Yolnguwho object to outsiders learning Yolngu songs.Why should someone on the other side of theworld be playing sacred music that belongs tothis place and to specific clans? Does this weaken or strengthen the power of these songsand what they invoke? These are the questionsthat you won't get consensus on. So this CDaddresses the problem by teaching techniquewithout teaching songs. No Yolngu claim thatthere's inherent sacred power in retroflexingyour tongue. Anybody can do it.

When teaching the little I know aboutplaying didge to other people, it is often achallenge to be really analytical aboutwhat I'm doing more or less subcons-

ciously during my playing. I imaginethat for such an accomplished player asMilkayngu, who has been playing sincehis early childhood, and learned throughprobably very different teaching me-thods than ours, this must be a hugechallenge. How did you address thisissue?

To be a bit egotistical, this is why it was so im-portant to have an experienced non-Yolngudidge player and teacher working on this proj-ect with Milkayngu, to ask him the right ques-tions. He didn't know many details of what hewas doing, and we had to work together to figure it out. My favourite story about this in-volves German player Markus Meurer, whowas in the area at the time. He asked Milkayn-gu how Yolngu kids learn circular breathing.The answer was, “learn what?” It's not even aconcept here. You just start playing when youare young and it comes naturally if you play theproper way.

The first thing we did was to arrange a lesson.It was good that I had been playing for 12 yearsand working on Yolngu style for a few years(but not having much success), while Markushad been playing didge only a few years, notworking on Yolngu style at all. So we had twodifferent student perspectives. If Milkay couldget us both making progress, then we wouldknow the techniques worked. We recorded thelesson, in which we tried to identify all the necessary individual techniques and come upwith exercises for them. Afterwards, I editeddown the recording into a sketch of the CD.

It was huge for me - 5 years after my first visitto Arnhem Land, I finally got my tongue movingright thanks to that one lesson. I was shockedhow quick it was, and how few techniques Mil-kayngu identified. I was dubious, but then liste-ned to a lot of Yolngu music that had seemedlike a string of different techniques to me be-fore, and suddenly understood it all! Not that Ihave mastered it in my own playing, but atleast I understand better now.

It was also important in terms of instrumentchoice and lip technique for me. When Mil-kayngu was picking instruments to use for tea-ching, I showed him a few at the art centre thatI liked, and he rejected them all, instead pick-ing one that he had made that I didn't like. Ihad a hard time maintaining the drone andswitching from trumpet to drone. But he said ithad "good balance." After that, I tried to playthat yidaki a few minutes every day at work,and after a few weeks decided to buy it to learnfrom it. It was the first didgeridoo I ever boughtspecifically because I didn't like it! I have learned a lot from it and now it's one of my fa-vourites. Actually, it's the one Milkayngu is

28 WORKSHOP Milkayngu Mununggurr

29Milkayngu Mununggurr WORKSHOP

pictured playing all over the CD booklet, and isused on the trumpet exercises.

Getting back on topic, there was a lot of dis-cussion throughout the recording process onhow he was doing what he did. One importantdecision was to record all of the exercises be-fore recording the instructions on how to dothem. I took time listening to all the tracks sothat when we worked on the instructions, Icould ask questions in detail, and so that hecould know exactly what he was describing rat-her than just having a general idea. We alsohad a few workshops during the recording pro-cess, at the Garma Festival and at a didgeshop in Sydney, in which to try out the tech-niques on other students and see what questions we hadn't thought of. That was im-portant; as we were reminded we hadn't eventhought to answer the obvious question of whento breathe. Following the model of my ownCD's, we recorded his breath on the tracks soit's audible, but it's still important to acknow-ledge it in the liner notes and voice instructions.

What I find particularly useful are the ill-lustrations of not only the individual ton-gue positions but also the illustration ofthe whole movement sequence during aspecific sound element. But how much va-riation is there between players? Andhow 'general' are these patterns for thedifferent styles in for example North-Eastand South-East Arnhem Land?

There certainly is some variation between play-ers, and that is acknowledged in the linernotes. But the variation is kind of in betweenthe tongue motions, such as with voice ormouth shaping, or the very fine details such ashow far retroflexed the tongue is at any giventime. The tongue doesn't have to move thesame every time. So the CD teaches the fun-damentals that are common to all Yolngu play-ing, but it's up to the individual to study otherrecordings and/or make up new variations.Where you'll find the most difference is listen-ing to older recordings, or even the rare elderwho still plays, like Djalu'. This new CD willvastly increase your ability to understand whatthose older players are doing, and you will ap-preciate what makes them great so muchmore! I don't want to say too much on comparisonsto other didgeridoo music as I've only done in-tense study on this one style. I do know thatmotions in and out of retroflexed positions arecommon to all the styles, and that Milkayngucompared the soft tongue “witj-dju” exerciseon this CD to styles from other regions. I thinkthe smart thing to say would be that this CDvery specifically covers Yolngu yidaki playing,but that there are elements that will apply tostyles from other Aboriginal groups of the Top

End. This CD will definitely not teach youWestern or Southeastern didjeridu playing, butit should give you a background from whichyou can understand those styles better.

You've had the opportunity now to see thewhole set of instructions in action at a fewfestivals where Milkayngu was teachingyidaki classes. How did people react? I betit allowed many participants to progressrapidly.

Yes, we've seen good progress using these exercises. It of course varies from student tostudent, usually depending on the individual'sability to let go of their own habits and imitateMilkayngu. For me, trying to play Yolngu yidakiwas like starting all over with the didge. Therewas one student who had been playing twoyears, and had the uncanny ability to just dowhat he was told, and got the closest to any-one I've heard, pretty much immediately. Onone occasion, we had a small group get to the

point where they understood the motions wellenough that we could write a whole short pieceusing Yolngu terminology, and they could playit together. It was great fun! So I feel goodabout how we're doing this. The reason Yolngucan communicate songs to each other by sing-ing their mouth sounds is that they have acommon language that they learn basically without trying, just by growing up with it. I thinkthis CD is the first thing going out into theworld with a master Yolngu player who's goodat communicating in English explaining clearlyin terms we understand what the mouthsounds they sing means, so that we can

understand the vocabulary as well. BeforeYolngu were only sharing the final product withus, not the building blocks. I can say from myown experience and from witnessing work-shops that it really works.

Of course, not everyone becomes a master in-stantly, and that's not the goal. The aim isn'tfor every didge player in the world to be amaster of Yolngu style. For that you need life-long immersion in the culture. Instead Milkayjust gives the fundamentals from which the stu-dent can either study more Yolngu music withvastly better understanding, or to take thefoundation of traditional playing and createtheir own hybrid style. Milkay always says inthe workshops that it doesn't matter that people don't sound exactly like him. As long asthey begin to understand and are somehow affected by the experience, whether it's an influence on their playing style or not, that's allthat matters.

INFOSound samples are available at :

www.serioussticks.com

The CD is available at:

Australia: www.yirrkala-arts.com USA: www.gingerroot.comEurope: www.serioussticks.comJapan: www.dinkum-j.com