Re: OT: A new Didgeridoo and a fool who doesn't know how to play it

[Stuart Wyatt (Solo String Project) <loopers-delight@solostring.com>]

On Saturday, January 4, 2003, at 11:39 PM, Lee Barnes wrote:

> Just had an early (if you're Orthodox) or late Christmas present show 
> up, a
> didgeridoo, just delivered by TNT... and I've got to ask, "how do you 
> play
> this beast?"  I've figured out which of the two ends you blow into, the
> inlay work helped greatly in this, but I've got to ask, what do you do 
> now?

I'm no expert, but I've had didge's kicking around for years... and are 
great to play whilst on the toilet.

Learn circular breathing if you don't know about it already. Its fairly 
simple once you get the logic of it: Blowing a reservoir of air from 
your cheeks whilst inhaling through the nose to refill the lungs. The 
easiest way is to try this from scratch is with a straw and a glass of 
water - and try to keep the stream of bubbles continuous.

With a didge, there are a hell of a lot of different ways to blow into 
it. Once you get your basic vibratory sound (this can take a lot of 
practice in itself), make vowel sounds 'AEIOU'.... then move your 
tongue from the roof of the mouth to the base... to your teeth, then to 
the back of your throat. Just from the shape of the mouth, you realise 
the diversity of harmonics in this instrument.

Other tricks? Singing whilst blowing.... try gregorian chants based on 
the root note of the didge. Screams, growls and basically any sound can 
go well.

There are a number of notes similar to brass instruments, that are 
obtained through faster vibration of the lips and heavy attack. 'High 
toots'... you should be able to find at least two easily.... any higher 
than that are difficult.

Mould the mouthpiece to fit your position... Do this by heating 
beezewax (in an old saucepan), and dipping in the didge to build up 
layers of wax. Dont just rely on the standard mouthpiece.

Finally, practice with a good acoustic monitoring system. In other 
words, a plastic bucket opened towards you, so that you will have the 
harmonics and high frequencies bounced back towards you. Fireplaces are 
good, as are small ceramic bathrooms. Alternatively, my SM57 mic 
plugged into multi-fx then routed into a PA sounds even better....

I'm rambling, but there should be enough tips there :)

-- 
Stuart Wyatt (Solo String Project) - http://SoloString.com