Didgeri Dudes



Brian Pertl was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1986, he received a B.M. in trombone performance and a B.A. in English literature from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Later that same year he was awarded the Thomas Watson Fellowship which allowed him to travel abroad to study the music of Australian Aborigines and Tibetan Buddhist monks. Brian earned an MA in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University in 1990, and is currently completing the Ph.D. program in ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, specializing in the music of the Australian Aborigines. He has recently recorded and released an instructional tape, Echoes from the Dreamtime: A Didjeridu Workshop, designed to instruct beginners as well as advanced players.	The didgeridoo is an ancient Australian Aboriginal wind instrument that is capable of producing a wide variety of sounds utilizing combinations of pursed tones, harmonic manipulation, vocalizations, and circular breathing techniques.	Jamie Cunningham was born in Austin, Texas. He has area specialties in the music of the American Indian, Africa, Afro-America, and Indonesia. After studying composition and French horn performance at the University of Oregon, he completed both his Bachelors and Masters degrees in World Music at San Diego State University. Since 1980, Jamie has been active as a percussionist in the West Coast traditional and popular world music scenes in San Diego and Seattle. He received his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Washington in 1998, specializing in the music and culture of Native North America. He also teaches beginning and advanced didgeridoo techniques in the course Play the Mysterious Didgeridoo, through the UW Experimental College.

The Didgeri Dudes,™ a/k/a Brian Pertl and Jamie Cunningham, are both ethnomusicologists - scholars and performers of a wide variety of world music traditions. They began playing together in 1990, while studying didgeridoo with trombonist and performance-artist Stuart Dempster at the University of Washington. While giving the utmost respect for the Australian Aboriginal didgeridoo tradition, in which single didgeridoos are played to accompany song and dance, the Didgeri Dudes’™ approach is very different and emphasizes didgeridoos played in pairs. The combined sound of two didgeridoos creates a complex gestalt of exotic textures and rhythms, that transcends the normal musical boundaries of this simply constructed but sonically complicated instrument.	The particular didgeridoos used in each piece were chosen on the basis of sound quality and mutual compatibility from the large collections Brian and Jamie. They include traditional Aboriginal gum didgeridoos, naturally hollowed out by termites, and hand carved North American didgeridoos made from red and yellow cedar. Other didgeridoos used in these recordings were made from a variety of other materials including: bamboo, century plant stalks from the Sonora Desert, and several types of plastic pipe. The blending of these didgeridoo pairs was enhanced by nature recordings, conch shell trumpets, world percussion, and the human voice. The themes and ideas herein are drawn from the musical rhythms and natural environments of the Pacific Northwest and the world.	This album was recorded the day after Earth Day, 1995, at the Wreck Room in Seattle, Washington. The recording and mastering sessions were engineered by Steve Carlson. The Didgeri Dudes™ would like to dedicate this album to Stuart Dempster for his guru like inspiration. Brian and I would personally like to thank both of our immediate families for their support and encouragement: Janice, Michelle, Sydney, Miles, and Erin. Cover design, layout, and liner notes by Jamie Cunningham. Didgeri Dudes™ petroglyph design by David Patrick Cunningham. © Didgeri Dudes™ 1995.

Under the Earth Tones is the second album of experimental didgeridoo music by Jamie Cunningham and Brian Pertl, also known as the Didgeri Dudes.
		Using a sonic palette of traditional and modern didgeridoos made from wood, bamboo, plastic pipe and cactus, the Didgeri Dudes and special guest Stuart Dempster paint ambient textures on the canvas of an abandoned two million gallon underground water cistern at Fort Warden, near Port Townsend, Washington.
This huge circular subterranean chamber boasts an extremely long reverberation of well over a minute, requiring the musicians therein to play the acoustic space as an instrument. The recording was made during a marathon fourteen hour session in the dank darkness of the cistern, illuminated by only the light that filtered through the small roof entrance.
		The effect of being totally immersed in pure sound for an extended period of time left the performers emotionally charged and euphoric at the day's end.