Sound of the didgeridoo

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A dark dense jungle, with fireflies buzzing around and a beautiful full moon night — doesn’t it sound like a scene straight from a suspense film?

Mark Atkins, world-renowned musician from Australia, who dons many hats of talents, set the stage on fire with his thrilling act at the Rajasthani International Folk Festival held in Jodhpur recently. The storyteller, songwriter, composer and painter set the pulse alive enthralling his audiences. Popularly known for his instrument didgeridoo, Atkins held the audience captivated for every moment of his performance at RIFF 2012.
As Atkins started the show by creating different magical sounds from the didgeridoo (a long hollow pipe-like instrument), he transported the audience into the wilderness of Australian jungles and gave it an eclectic melody by teaming the didgeridoo with his guitar, playing both simultaneously, much to the audiences’ amazement. Atkins created further magic and let the stage come alive by collaborating with the Rajasthani folk percussionists, who were simply phenomenal. The combination of the didgeridoo, guitar, khartaal and dhol was indeed a magical one.
Atkins, who is particularly known for his instrument didgeridoo, says that at the first instance, the name baffles the audiences. “Everywhere I go, the instrument gets many people curious and they all come up to me asking about how exactly the didgeridoo works. But, before that, practically everyone is baffled by the name. After great consensus, the name has been finalised as didgeridoo, but it has various other names such as Bonga. The sound takes time to grow on people, but once you are familiar with it, the music hits off like any other musical conversation,” says Atkins.
Elaborating on the technical aspects of the didgeridoo, he says, “It is generally played in the north of Australia. The hollow piece of the wood comes from the eucalyptus tree. The name comes from the various sounds that emanate from the instrument,” says Atkins. “I seek inspirations from nature around me. I have been travelling for the last 27 years and different sounds across the world from the wilderness inspire me. It could be as simple as animals in a bush or the acceleration of a car,” says Atkins.
For someone like Atkins, who is of Australian-Aboriginal origin, music played an instrumental role in shaping up his ideology, his thought process and his outlook towards life. He owes his interesting background and upbringing to his Black mother and an Irish father. He descends from the Yamatji people of Western Australia as well as Ireland. “We had a hard time growing up. It wasn’t so easy with two different cultures coming together. It was tough for my mother to bring us up and break that black-white barrier. I believe it was a good balance with my parents coming from two completely different cultures. My mother always taught us to believe in the power of ‘us’. The mentality of my parents together carved our outlook towards everything in life,” he elaborates.
The massive long pipe of didgeridoo isn’t as simple to handle as it looks. Atkins has a special power of making the most difficult aspects of it look simple. “There is a lot of breathing technique involved. One has to constantly work on stamina and breath and maintain the rhythm. You have to blow the air and experiment with different tones. The tonality of the didgeridoo matters a lot. And once you open your eyes to nature, there is so much to explore in music,” says Atkins.
The multifaceted artiste has collaborated with the likes of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Hothouse Flowers, Philip Glass, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. “Those were some of the great years of my life. It was brilliant collaborating with Zeppelin and going all rock and roll. Even at RIFF, the collaboration with the Rajasthani artistes was fabulous. It was crazy fun as I learnt great technique for them. I’m looking forward to many more collaborations,” he smiles.