Interview of Marko Johnson with John Macdonald for Didgeridoo Magazine.
Marko Johnson is a bit of a legendary figure as an inventor of new types of didgeridoo – the Didjbox, the Didjflute, the leather didge, the Mind Blower – the list is pretty impressive. John Macdonald talked to Marko to find out more…
John: Marko, in your home country the USA and amongst the global didge scene, you’re pretty well known as” a maker and inventor of a whole collection of variations on the didgeridoo – your original Didjbox has become a much-copied classic, and these days you’re making a whole range of boxes including the Didjflute and the latest addition, the Mind Blower. Before we even mention any of your other inventions, I have to ask what inspires you to create such a wide range of models -are you one of those few people who make their dreams reality, are you responding to customer requirements and feedback, or is it a bit of both?
Marko: I guess the best way to explain my motivation is to say that I more or less fell into the arts and crafts world at an early age and soon found that simplicity in design was the key to success. I also liked the idea of things being multifunctional if possible.
My main inspiration is to know that I am creating an object or trying a technique for the very first time. Starting from having an idea and all the steps leading to completion is very inspirational to me. The process can become more important than the end result. My method is trial and error. When I attempt to create an idea sometimes it works, sometime it doesn’t. At the very least, I will have learned something that I can try to refine on the next attempt. Keeping entertained is a huge motivation. So is making a modest living while doing exactly what I enjoy the most. I initially design to suit myself. I usually don’t want input from others and I prefer to work alone. Usually there is no other source of information for what I am doing and I really enjoy exploring uncharted waters. Once I have developed a design I put it out in hope of seeking approval and some feedback. In the case of the first Didjboxes I sent out for inspection the obvious was the -response. It sounds a bit too muffled. I attempted a redesign to make a bit larger and louder soundi’ng box. The Traveler for the compactness factor was the first production model. The tapered Obelisk was next, for better sound projection.Over the years several people suggested that I drill some holes in a regular straight didge so it can be played like a flute, flicking their fingers in a flute playing gesture up near the mouthpiece. The answer is that the holes would have to be near the bell to be useful and your arm is not long enough to reach. The 24 inch long Obelisk has 3 channels and it is just a matter of luck when I tried to drill holes to intersect the channels and the holes lined up to be comfortably within reach of tne fingers. This only work-ed well if the Obelisk was tuned to C. Changing the key note throws off the finger holes enough to make them unreachable.
The direct answer to your question is that I feel extremely fortunate to be able to dedicate most of my time toward being creative. In the last decade I have really grown to enjoy exploring my own thought and visions and not depending much on input from others.
I may be getting ahead of the questioning John, but this subject is bound to come up: the Didjbox origin.
It seems many people who start making didges go through a PVC pipe phase, usually at the beginning of their introduction to the didge. They attempt to burn them, melt and twist them, distort, paint and disguise the tube so it looks like anything but a piece of PVC pipe.
Another variation is to use the available fittings that are made to use with PVC and make unusual shapes. I made a bugle-shaped didge that wrapped around in an oval shape that sounded just as good as a straight tube. It was sort of bulky and I thought what if I get a solid block of wood, a 4 x 4 x 30 inch cedar fencepost, split it in half and route a half round channel in both pieces starting at the top end. The channel runs the length of the post and at the bottom makes a U-turn so the channel goes back up the length and comes out the front side near the top. Like the shape of a saxophone but all within the 4×4 post.
The 2 pieces were glued together and played a right on C with a channel length of 53 inches. It sounded great. A single straight bore was not the only way to make a wooden didge! Next I obtained a poplar board about 8×11 and 2 inches thick, cut it in half with a band saw, then used a router to carve 5 channels about an inch in diameter in both halves of the wood. I connected the channels so they serpentined back and forth and exited on opposite ends of the two outer chambers. The two pieces were glued and clamped back together. Didjbox was born. It played a perfect C, and sounded surprisingly good!
This occurred in May 1995. I tried a couple of other ideas and realized that the potential of possibilities for Didjbox design were infinite! At this point in time I was learning how to make and tune flutes. I picked up a simple flute-making craft kit and put it together to learn the process, then started experimenting with my own materials and variations. I was quite obsessed with learning about musical scales ana more about music in general. I had started practising and playing didge with a friend who was a skilled percussionist and a tabla teacher. I made a conscious decision to put the entire Didjbox concept on hold for a while. I knew once I decided to seriously pursue this idea it would consume my attention for a long time. The potential seemed overwhelming. I knew I had my next obsession just waiting to be unleashed.
The leather didge by any chance? The idea of making didges out of leather is something, which totally astounded me when I first came across one of yours.
I might have misspoken when I said next obsession, should have said another obsession.
At this period of time, 1995, the focus was on making two styles of didges, the stave style and the split ana routed aspen didges. Several different didge making techniques and materials led up to the leather didge.
I guess I should just start from the first time I saw a didge almost 12 years ago. I had been making drums for a couple of years and had a wholesale account with a gallery in Santa Fe. The gallery owner, Paul Simon, also a drum maker was traveling through Salt Lake and I was anxious to meet him. Once he arrived he asked if I had ever seen or heard a didgeridoo. He had a couple in his car he wanted to show to me. I was aware of the Australian instrument, the didgeridoo, but had no idea how it was played or how it sounded. He had one didgeridoo made from Eucalyptus from Australia. The other was made from an agave stock, a new type of didge that his friend Mark Woody had been developing.
Upon my initial introduction to the didgeridoo, I immediately made a bamboo didge and then several more. I have never stopped making didges since then, September 1993. I briefly experimented with PVC pipe long enough to figure out how to heat up the PVC and use the outside of a small funnel to flare out the bell end and to size down the mouth end with the inside of the funnel. I knew that didgeridoos were made of wood, not plastic. I set out to make a wooden didge by finding a natural shaped stick that was the basic shape of a straight didge.
The branch was split lengthwise with a band saw, then a V shape groove cut into both halves, then chiseled, rasped to create a rounded hole. Glued and hose clamped back together, it sounded like a didge when played. It didn’t take long to realize if sealed with a polyurethane water base product, it sounded even better.
Keep in mind that I had never seen or heard anyone circular breathe before. I had only heard it was possible so I set out to somehow try and learn. After about 6 weeks of attempting to learn I sent away for a How to Play tape by Alistair Black. It explained the oka straw trick, blowing bubbles non-stop into a glass of water. After a little more practice I had the concept of circular breathing down. It was a miracle to me that I had lear¬ned and I was anxious to show off my newly acquired talent.
An old friend of mine had been helping me make drums at the time. Don Behrman was totally unimpressed with the dying moose sounds I had been making so I challenged him to try and learn to circular breathe. He seemed to think he could figure it out by the next day. I bet him a million dollars he couldn’t! I should never gamble! The next day he could indeed circular breathe and he said it was a technique he learned in his school band. It was referred to as cheating or the ability to play a very long note. He played the trombone years ago and so did I. Seems like lots of didge players had experience playing the trombone in the past.
On with the didge making. Another friend was helping me make drum shells. The late Steve Cuthbert, a dedicated woodworker, was making wooden ashiko shells for me. An As-hiko is a cone shaped drum about 2 to 3 feet height and about a foot in diameter for the drumhead. I asked Steve to make a very narrow but long tube using the same construction method as the ashiko shell. Nine 1/2″ wide strips of aromatic cedar, slightly beveled on both edges were then glued together to make the very first stave, or slat style didge. It worked quite well. One of the first variations on the stave didge was to shape each stave, thin at the top, wider in the upper third then narrow again and then a bit larger at the bell end. The Coke bottle shape made it possible to make very low-keyed didges, A’s and B.’s.
In the first months of 1994 I experimented with several types of logs. Pine, to many cracks. Cedar fence poles from the farm supply store, way to knotty and hard to work. Tried several different hardwood logs, walnut, maple, fruit tree branches and trunks. I lost momentum with the log didges for a while and concentrated on refining the stave style didges.
I had been making drums for a while and decided to try using the very same rawhide to make didges. Rawhide is not the same as the leather I use now. It had a mind of its own and was hard to shape. It was thin and sensitive to climate changes. Nothing sounds worse than a soggy didge! I only had the polyurethane to seal them with. The rawhide didges were OK but not great by any means.
Spring 1994 we acquired several eucalyptus didges from Clarion Music in San Francisco rekindled my interest in wooden didges and soon realized the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City were abundant in aspen trees. Millions if not billions of aspens in Utah to choose from. In the next year or so many excursions to the mountains to collect aspen logs. Finding the perfect aspen tree trunk became an exercise in finding the perfect shape and thickness. The tree had to have been dead for the right amount of time; it ideally would still be standing and have few if any cracks. Once a tree hit the ground it decayed rapidly. My friend Don and I made many pilgrimages to stockpile the logs to’ make into didges and there was always a comment on the parallel experience of foraging for eucalyptus in Australia. Aspen was quite easy to work and Don did most of the splitting, routing and gluing over the next couple of years while I painted and decorated them.
My friend Paul from Santa Fe came through SLC again and brought his friend, Mark Woody with him. Mark had several agave didges with him that he had made. I finally had an opportunity to obtain one of his instruments. I was impressed by the crisp and responsive playing qualities. I enjoyed the agave didge for several months; then tragedy strikes. I somehow managed to slam the didge in a car door. It was the loudest crack I have ever heard. I thought a gun had discharged! The bell and half of the shaft were crushed and so was I, devastated. The didge was sent back to Mark in New Mexico to repair. It took a year to return. During that year, I made a business trip to Arizona to personally visit some of the galleries that display my work and look for new accounts. In Jerome, Arizona, I met a didge maker and player with a parrot on his shoulder. His friends called him Bumble. He agreed to collect and send some agave stocks to me. I had already made one agave didge. Another friend of mine, the late Charles Randall had property in southern Utah and brought a straight agave stock that he had cut when it was green. It took a year of so to dry but I eventually attempted to clean and hollow it out without cutting it in half and then used varathane to seal it. It sounded OK, not great in com¬parison to my crushea didge being repaired. When the first agave stock arrived from Arizona I realized I would need to split them in half in order to scrape out all of the fibrous material inside leaving a thin brittle shell. I then came to the realization that it would be necessary to use epoxy resin to seal and harden the hollow porous agave stock. This was the turning point, using epoxy. I had intentionally avoided using epoxy in the past but realized it was necessary to coat the interior and exterior in order to make a good sounding responsive didgeridoo. I probably made about 100 agave didges in the next year or so; they became my favorite didges to play. I decided that a tube made from almost any material could be coated with epoxy and be tuned into a didge.
I was always interested in trying new materials mat were readily available to create didges. I had some thick canvas on hand and made a flimsy tube, wrapped the outside with a piece of tie-dyed fabric and used the epoxy to harden the entire instrument. It worked okay also but something was lacking with the sound quality. I made a few but eventually lost interest.
Since I had been working with leather for almost 20 years I thought I would try some 1/8-inch thick tooling leather for didge making. I cut the flat piece of hide into a tapered strip, hand punched both sides and then hand stitched the sides together.
Epoxy was used inside and out and the first leather didge was created. I liked the sound quality better than the canvas and I made quite a few variations, some unusual shapes were made that looked like something from a Dr. Seuss book. I even used a sewing machine to stitch some of them together.
Toward the end of 1998 I had been exposed to so many epoxy fumes that the slightest whiff of it made my stomach feel queasy and my kidneys would start to ache. Enough of that for a while. I decided to avoid using epoxy. I believe this is the long answer to your short question but defiantly far from the end of the evolution of the leather didgeridoo.
Tell me more about the leather didges.
In October of 2000, the first Joshua Tree Didjfest was held in California. I attended as a vendor and had a booth selling my didges and Didjboxes. I had a couple of the thin walled leather didges with me; I thought they were good playing instruments out not great. Several people were very intrigued by the leather didges, so when I returned home I decided to obtain some thick leather and have another go at making a leather didge. Three-eighths-of-an-inch thick saddle skirting was what I used for the first try. I had to hand-punch both sides of the long and slightly tapered strip of leather, then hand-sew the seam with a whipstitch. I made 4 didges from the hide and one is a favorite didge of mine even today. I soon found that the thicker and denser the leather, the better the sound and more durable the didge would be. I tried sole leather; it is actually compressed and is extremely dense. Unfortunately this type of leather only comes in small hides. I had access to some water buffalo hides and they were great. Thev were extremely thick and unusually heavy in comparison to most hides. I lost the source for the water buffalo hides and have been using quarter inch thick cowhide for most of my didges. I have developed fast and easy ways to paint and decorate the leather. Let it be known that I do not work well with a paintbrush. I do have others paint on some of my didges and boxes to add variety. I’m a splasher! I see more artistic potential with a bucket of paint and a chainsaw than I do with a bucket of paint and a brush.
What do you think about others copying your ideas, and what is the future of the Didjbox?
Great question, John. I am delighted to see others make their version of the Didjbox. I presented the Didjbox to the world when I posted them on my Internet website in 1999. I never published plans on how to build them but simply stated that they consisted of a number of folded channels that traveled approximately the same distance inside of a very compact space as the length of a straight didge. Just how small can you go and still have that deep low drone? It didn’t take long for others to figure out the simple principle of the Didjbox. In the same spirit that people from many countries around the world found their own designs and materials to create their own version of the didgeridoo, they will also find new and unique ways of making Didjboxes. Nothing I should or could do about it! It is inevitable that good designs and ideas will be copied. I believe all credit and gratitude should go all the way back to the originators of the kinaki, the Aboriginal people of Australia and the handiwork of nature. The Didjbox would not exist if it were not for these factors which took 40,000 years to evolve.
I believe the Didjbox concept is bound to leave a mark on the history of musical instrument design. The surface has only been scratched as to the design and application of the Didjbox as a musical toy to a precision sound therapy instrument. A do it yourself craft project kit to a sculptural installation. I can envision very specific Didjbox designs for very many specific applications being developed in the future.
When I was first introduced to the didgeridoo in 1993, I instantly knew I had found a mystical instrument that would transform my future. I knew there was only one way for the recognition of this instrument to go and that would be to increase. My interest is stimulated every day and I know I have lots of new and innovative ideas just waiting to be unleashed.
I want to go off at a complete tangent here. When you announced recently that you were coming to Switzerland for the Swizzeridoo festival, it occurred to me that you would be the first American didgeridoo player, maker or artist that I have ever met – though I have had a good deal of contact in the past through e-mail and discussion groups. From the numerous discussions I’ve been involved in or read, I often get the feeling that in the States, the didgeridoo is very much a part of the “West Coast” esoteric and “alternative” scene, but has yet to move slowly into mainstream culture. Is this impression something you would confirm?
I think it is safe to assume that the main concentration of didgeridoo enthusiasts are in the West Coast States, the larger cities in California, Oregon and Washington State. To my knowledge the first Didgefest in the US was held in Arizona. Then the JT Didgefest in California took the limelight as the largest didge related event in the US. There are a couple of annual Didgefest in the northwestern states. There is a Solstice Didgefest held in Colorado, also in Maryland on the East coast.
I live in the ultraconservative state of Utah and had no one to consult on didgeridoo related matters face to face for several vears until I attended the first JT Didjfest in the year 2000. I acquired my first computer in 1997 and immediately founa the Dream-time Server didgeridoo email list and was able to be in contact with other players, mostly from the US.
The alternative scene is definitely a common ground for didge players. I attended a Rainbow Gathering here in the Utah Mountains a couple years ago. It was like stepping into a time warp. Nothing had changed in almost 40 years except one noticeable addition: lots of didges! I have observed the popularity of the didge in the latest wave of Burning Man type festivals springing up in the US. Didge fits right in with the Pagan tribal pyro tecnno rave party-art scene. In general I would say the. didge has a lot of catching up to do in the US to achieve the popularity that seems prevalent in Europe.
Now that you have just come to Europe for Swizzeridoo, perhaps you ‘a like to say what your impressions were – especially for those who have never experienced the European didge “scene”?
What an experience to be among so many extremely enthusiastic people, players and didge fans. I got to meet Willi Grimm and realized that he had introduced the didgeridoo to Switzerland 35 years ago. This could explain the popularity of the instrument in Switzerland and the surrounding European countries. It’s a challenge to find many serious US players with more than 15 years experience, although I know of a few. I was given the opportunity to perform and hold a workshop at the festival. I always wanted to visit Switzerland; one reason is because that is where my relatives were from before they immigrated to America. I wasn’t disappointed. The generosi-tv and hospitality of the Swiss people I met will never be forgotten.
“On the west side of the Great Salt Lake, in the middle of nowhere, bring your own water.”
The Sun Tunnels, a permanent astrological sculpture by Nancy Holt located in the west desert of Utah. Four 9 foot in Diameter cement pipes are lined up in an X formation to frame the sunrise on the longest day of the year, the summer solstice. When, you look through the pipes from the east side the sunset is perfectly framed in the center of the pipes. The next morning if you look through the South tube you see the sunrise framed on the northern horizon.
On December 21st, the shortest day of the year, you can look through the pipes in the opposite direction for the same effect. It is a very mystical location to play the didge. The pipes really echo when you play inside of one of them and project the sound across the vast barren landscape.