“Ba Ganala Ganala” is a mesmerizing Australian Aboriginal song from the Nayangurmarda people who lived for generations in the desert near Eighty Mile Beach in northwestern West Australia. All Around This World first heard “Ba Ganala” on the Smithsonian Folkways album, “Songs of Aboriginal Australia and Torres Strait,” sung by a Nyangurmarda man named Kupangu. While the liner notes indicate that the songs on this album are all secular, they also describe most ancient Aboriginal music as being woven into rituals, with lyrics, often in lost ancestral languages, that have multiple layers of meaning, both in this world and the world of the spirts. When we sing “Ba Ganala” in class we simulate the tone created by a didgeridoo.
Tag Archives | Didgeridoo
One Hollow Branch and 1,500 Years of Sound
One of our favorite instruments at All Around This World is the didgeridoo, an instrument identified most with the indigenous peoples of Australia and rumored to have been in existence for roundabout 1,500. The best didgeridoos are made from eucalyptus branches hollowed by termites and can be as long as nine feet long. NINE FEET! I don’t know how long the didgeridoo Larry Gurruwiwi plays this video is, but we can all agree that it sounds great.
