Hello Everyone!
For this year's Group Instrument Project we will be keeping with this year's theme of Gourds in the Wind by making a wind instrument. We will be making didgeridoos. A didgeridoo is an instrument from the native people of Australia. It is essentially a long tapering tube. In the hands of a skilled player it makes a rhythmic bass droning sound.
Traditionally a didgeridoo is straight. However we weren't able to find any straight snake gourds so these didgeridoos will be curvy. Maybe we'll call them wavy-doos.
We will have at least four didgeridoos for you to work on at the Gathering. Two of them are pictured here. Didgeridoo A is fully complete. Didgeridoo B is complete but is in two halves. A is probably too long to be shipped. B can be shipped. The white areas that you see are where we joined the gourds together. These joints are covered with white primer. Both didgeridoos are about five feet long.
2011 Group Project
About any technique can be used to decorate these didgeridoos. These snake gourds are a bit thin so carving is probably not a good idea but almost anything else would be fine. Matter of fact, you could probably take a class Thursday or Friday and apply that particular technique to one of these didgeridoos while it was still fresh in your mind.
The idea of the Group Instrument Project is that it is a GROUP project. We do not expect any one to spend an enormous amount of time working on it. However if MANY people spend some time working together we will end up with a unique and spectacular piece of art. Last year we made 'uli'uli gourd rattles. Even though they were relatively small, many times any one particular rattle had been worked on by five or six different people. This is what it is all about!
We realize that many of you may not have the time to work on the Project while you are at the Gathering. So again this year we are offering to send you one of these instrument now so that you can do your part before the Gathering. We can send you one or two halves of a didgeridoo. This would be a great project for you and some of your friends to work together on. Or for your gourd patch.
Contact me at BattinInd@webtv.net
or through this website's webmaster if you are interested.
The finished instruments will be put in the Auction Saturday night.
But we need YOU to make it happen!
Didgeridoo A
Didgeridoo B
Didgeridoo A
Didgeridoo B
Example of finished Didgeridoos.
Both made by John Martin of Sardinia, Ohio,
and yes, he can play them!
Coordinators:
Rich 'Batt' Battstone (Ohio/Indiana): 
