Rob Smith

Principal, Co-Founder, Architects Smith Metzger
Plays the Didgeridoo

“This is the story,” Rob Smith says as he picks up what appears to be a 3-foot shank of bamboo.

“The didgeridoo came from Australia. Trees fell to the ground and termites hollowed them out. The wind blew through the hollow tree and made this sound. The people found them and the medicine men blew through them to heal people.” 

Those aboriginal people were walking around 1,500 years ago or so. The sound they made with the instrument was deep and resonant and seemed to flow in waves. 

Smith has been playing the didge, as he calls it, for about 15 years. It has a calming influence. “I play it to relieve stress,” he said. 

Smith has four didgeridoos, two made from PVC pipe that has been elaborately decorated — one of them with a dragon’s head fashioned in the plastic — one made of blood-red eucalyptus, and one made from bamboo that was harvested in Hawaii. 

He plays by fluttering his lips, creating back pressure that reverberates the length of the instrument. Smith said he doesn’t consider himself a musical person; the drone of the didge helps clear his mind during daily yoga exercises, followed by a few minutes of meditation. 

“I was already doing yoga for daily stress relief, and it just seemed a natural part of it.”