Musician raising awareness about didgeridoo

Friday, May 18, 2001 | 9:10 a.m.

In the nearly 20 years since Stephen Kent first came in contact with the didgeridoo, he has performed the termite-hollowed instrument on more than a dozen CDs, collaborated with other musical groups and traveled the world entertaining and educating people on both the instrument and the culture whence it came.

All the while he watched it grow in popularity.

"When I started playing (nearly) 20 years ago it was almost unheard of for anyone to express an interest in playing it," Kent said from his Oakland, Calif., home. Now "there's this incredible subculture of people playing the didgeridoo."

Kent will perform the instrument today at Borders Books & Music on North Rainbow Boulevard and Saturday at Borders Books & Music in Henderson.

Anyone who watched the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, or CBS' game show "Survivor II: The Australian Outback," is likely to have heard the drawn-out drone of the the wind instrument that has been used for more than 1,000 years by the aborigines of Australia.

Similar to the bagpipes, the didgeridoo is played by using circular breathing, which requires breathing in through the nose while blowing out through the mouth, producing a continuous sound.

Traditionally the instrument is made from a eucalyptus log that has been hollowed out by termites. Contemporary versions have been chiseled to improve sound quality. The instrument has deep meaning and plays an important role in the spiritual, ceremonial and traditional culture of the aborigines.

"It's vital to their life and culture," Kent said. "It is the retelling of the creations of the Earth and conditions in it ... If they don't play the didgeridoo, dance and sing, then the Earth will die.

"I don't have the same profound relationship with the didgeridoo. What I do with didgeridoo is (play) contemporary music."

Kent first came in contact with the didgeridoo in the early 1980s when he became the musical director for Circus Oz, a contemporary Australian circus group with political content in its shows.

Shortly after he was traveling through Australia meeting the aborigines and learning about their culture and environment.

On taking an interest in the instrument, he said: "As a white guy from the other side of the world, I didn't know if it was OK for me to play.

"It was for me out of respect about not wanting to perpetuate cultural imperialism -- not doing further injustices to the aborigines," he said.

There are probably aborigines who are hard-core traditionalists who think others should not be playing the instruments, Kent said. On the other hand, there are aborigines who sell the instruments to people outside their culture.

Although the popularity of the instrument is growing in Western society, "the world hasn't really woken up to it as a vital musical instrument," Kent said. "A lot of people view it as an instrument from a different culture and it has a novelty. For me it's a lifestyle."

Kent, who was born in England but spent his formative years with his family in Uganda, said African rhythms and training in classical music have more influence on his musicality than do aboriginal influences.

"The didgeridoo is very strongly a voice of the Earth, and Earth consciousness goes with playing it," Kent said. "The secret really is the human being behind it who is the personality of the sound.

"In some ways I feel it's a meditational instrument, but I see it as an instrument that has a powerful connection to movement -- dance music. I'm constantly in motion (when playing)."

The didgeridoo plays a single pitch that is spiced up with different rhythms and different vocalizations, said Rob Weidenfeld, a local didgeridoo player who arranged Kent's Las Vegas appearance.

"You kind of sing into the instrument, hum, bark and growl," Weidenfeld

Weidenfeld, also known as the "DidjeriDude," has been playing the instrument for nearly two years and formed the Las Vegas Didgeridoo Collective (spellings for the instrument vary), which is dedicated to the emerging didgeridoo scene in Las Vegas. It has about five active members, and Weidenfeld hopes the group will grow as people become more familiar with the sound.

"It's such an interesting sound that people are drawn to it. When you get someone like Stephen Kent who's just a master ... it draws people."