It didn't hurt that he looked like Russel Crowe.....with a pony tail.....and a cool Celtic-y, tribal tattoo inside his Right forearm.....He was also great with kids, and an incredibly talented musician...a Total package that provided me with the best time I've had in a long time...at the Library, no less!
We stumbled upon this flyer last week, announcing a Didgeridoo workshop, on Monday July 15th. Babiest girl has had a fixation with the Didgeridoo for years, (Remember, this is the child whose favorite animal in Kindergarten was the Echidna....)so we decided to have a girls night out, Baby Girl, Babiest Girl and Me, and registered for the free workshop.We arrived at the appointed hour, and took our seats on the 2nd of two rows....Most of the participants were young children (a few of their parents joined us on the back row), and we were feeling a little out of place in the Children's Story Room......until "Quigley Down Under" walked into the room, strapped a bracelet made of bells around his ankle, sat on a Drum Box and blew into his instrument....you know.....the Didgeridoo. Now, let me insert right here, that I was fully prepared to be slightly bored - I mean, how interesting can a tubular instrument with no slides, no keys, no strings be? Just a long series of Johnny One Note, right?
How wrong I was.....First the drone started - then the split tones, and finally the rhythm and percussive force of his breath.... I was done for! (Like I said.....he looked like Russel Crowe!) It was pure electricity (The music, I mean.....I am a married woman, after all - AND, I was in the company of my daughters!). It was all I could do to stay in my seat - My feet and spirit wanted to dance - to join in the primal, rich, wanton beat. It sounded like Primordial Ooze, and campfire on a starry night, and antiquity. This was music to be heard with ear, heart and soul - and it spoke to the Wild Celtic Ancestors that reside in my person. It was pure, and organic, and liberating.
Sadly, this was not a long concert - it was a workshop, after all, and before we knew it, we were lining up to get our "student instruments" - a piece of pvc pipe, and a strip of masking tape (to ensure the sanitation of the "mouthpiece" - otherwise known as one end of the pipe). I am proud to say, that the Kennedy girls were the star pupils. I may have had an unfair advantage, because playing the Didgeridoo requires the same mouth positioning and breath as the Trumpet - which I played for most of my school years.) We laughed and laughed as we tried to coax "The. Sound." from the PVC, and giggled with pleasure and embarrassment, when we were asked to demonstrate our superior sounds to the group. The hour ended all too soon, and we were loathe to leave. We made of ourselves vocal Didgeridoos, droning the tunes and rhythms as we exited the Library, hand in hand - our high spirits leaking out, and made audible. What an amazing adventure, tucked into a little quiet corner, of our bland little town....On this out-of-the-ordinary Monday night, we Kennedy women will sleep with a smile on our lips, an aboriginal song in our hearts, and this unanswered question in our brains...."Where DOES one buy a Didgeridoo download"?!
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