Bullroarer: Australian musical instrument

The bullroarer also called rhombus or turndun is believed to be an ancient ritual musical instrument and a device historically used to communicate over great extended distances. The musical instrument dates back to the Paleolithic era being found in Ukraine at about 17,000 BC. A bullroarer expert, anthropologist Michael Boyd documented a number found in Europe, Asia, and the Indian sub-continent, Africa, America and Australia. In the ancient Greek Dionysian Mysteries, this musical instrument was used as a sacred instrument and it is still used in rituals worldwide. It is used in conjunction with the didgeridoo in ceremony across the continent.

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The bullroarer sometimes has been used erroneously as a means of seeming to demonstrate the Doppler effect in sound waves and in a case like that the wrong explanation that will be given is that the instrument travels around its circular path, its perceived pitch may, to a third party, seem to appear to rise and fall as it moves closer and farther away, correspondingly. These explanations are correct because it is difficult to keep track of the circling blade’s position as well as to associate that with the bullroarer’s pitch can change at the same time.

The greatest pitch differences are not caused by the move and withdrawal of the spinning blade; rather it winds up the twisting or loosens the twisting of the cord that holds the blade as the blade is spinning. When the twist of one direction gets tough or tight, the blade will slow down and the direction will be reversed, it continues to spin until the cord twist tightens again and at that time the blade will reverse its spin direction again. The variation in its own swift rate of spin is what gives out the pitch variation.

This musical instrument is made up of aerofoil wood of about 15-60 CM long and the width is about 1.25-5 CM attached to a long cord. Traditionally the wood is clipped down to a sharp edge around the edges and the notches along the length of the wood slat may be used or may not be used, this will depend heavily on the cultural tradition of the region. The cord can be given little initial twist and the roarer will be swung in a large circle in a horizontal plane or in a tiny circle with a vertical plane.

The musical instrument gives a notable roaring vibrato sound with notable sound modulations occurring from the rotation of the roarer along the longitudinal axis and short or long length cord could be used to spin the bullroarer. The bullroarer has been used numerously as musical instrument, ritualistic device and a long-ranged communication device by so many cultures over the past 19,000 years.