I got a Didgeridoo whilst on a student ambassador trip to Australia/New Zealand a few summers ago. It is a real one, made from termite-hollowed white ash and decorated with a woodburned alligator and various other circles, encased in other circles and patted with some flower (looks like a dandelion?) coated in white paint. It’s actually pretty hard to accurately describe some of the designs, so I’ll let a picture do it for me (it is worth a thousand words after all) as soon as my mom brings her camera back.
Anyway, what spurred me to create a thread about it was my recent rediscovery of a didgeridoo meditation CD that I had also purchased while traveling abroad, and subsequently lost upon returning home. I’ve just finished ripping it to my laptop, and I must say, I really do love the sound of this unique instrument. I have heard that it is the most difficult to master, and I believe it. I can circular breathe through a straw into a glass of water, but I’m nowhere near being able to do it through a 3.5-4ft peice of wood with a ~1" inner diameter.
I can make the sound, but I can only hold it for as long as my lungs allow in a single breath.
After buying it in ‘Oz’, and while playing it in NZ, I accidentally cured my chapped lips. It was winter there, and it was very cold and dry. My lips had been chapped and all I was doing about it was increasing my water intake. The beeswax coating around the ‘mouthpeice’ end of the didgeridoo ended up helping my lips to heal a considerable deal. I remember remarking “hey, my lips aren’t chapped anymore! it must have been the beeswax.”
It also makes a good party toy.
The last statement reminded me of how strict the customs laws are when entering NZ - they (the security guards) did a full search of some people’s bags, and they made a good effort to check the didgeridoos for holes (which would indicate someone was trying to make a smoking device out of them).
it’s an interesting sounding instrument and you can also use that long metal pipe you have at the end of your vacuum cleaner hose, it makes the same noise.
Really? That’s pretty cool - I’ll be sure to bring mine to the next NAUCC/UNICON (whichever I attend first).
I remember one night where a group of four of us were sitting on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean around sunset, attempting to play didgeridoos. That’s really an experience of a lifetime
Very kewl instrument.
Circular breathing will click for you one day.
What you’re basically doing is using your cheeks as an airbag, simmilar to the bag on the bagpipes.
While blowing from your lungs to produce the sound (And keeping your cheeks tight for better control), you’ll ‘siphon off’ a bit of the air to your cheeks. When you’re ready, and you’re cheeks are full, you’ll start blowing the air from your cheeks (it feels similar to trying to spit a jet of water from your mouth) and use that to continue the sound. At first there will be quite a difference in the tone you’ll produce. This is normal and as you get better at it, you’ll be better able to match the tones and hide your breathing bits.
While blowing from your cheeks, breathe in thru your nose to refill your lungs.
Switch your blowing source back to your lungs and ‘presto’, you’ve just circularly breathed.
When you start playing the didge, you do need to build up a bit of back pressure in order to be able to do the circular breathing thing.
Just blow hard and fast, creating a proper tone, into the didge, grab a mouthfull of air and blow again, four or five times and you’ll feel when the pressure makes it easier to get a better tone.
Once you can produce ongoing sound, start experimenting with making other sounds with your mouth and throat.
By just humming in your throat and matching the note you’re humming to the home-pitch of your didge, you can create wonderfull effects.
By changing the tone you’re humming, you can start setting up interference frequencies with the didge’s note.
Play around.
It’s great fun.
We don’t have white ash in Australia (probably eucalyptus) and “real” ones would be more likely painted rather than pyrographed. Depends on your definition of real though. No doubt it’s a real didgeridoo…authentic Aboriginal is a different matter.
Dude what? They were checking for borers and other insects.
I have a young distant cousin who went to Australia in 2004 and came home with one of those hollow sticks. Actually, I think he had it mailed home to Ohio because it was a problem to carry around and on the plane. I don’t know if he has learned to play it. Everyone at the 2004 family reunion wanted to see it.
It came with a small two-sided pamphlet that told about the artist’s history and how this didgeridoo was created. I can’t find the pamphlet at the moment, but you’re right, it isn’t white ash (wikipedia says white ash is native to north america), so I’m not sure exactly what type of wood it is. Probably, as you said, eucalyptus.
That’s not what they told us…but it makes sense…though I’d imagine Australia and NZ would share a lot of the same insects.
If you do some google searches, there are specs for cutting 1 1/2" pipe to A440 and other notes. Also I never tried this one, but with the proper plumbing equiptment you can make a slide didj (Dr.Didj?)
I’ve played with a guy who used to make didges from brass pipes.
He would also turn the mouthpiece to be the same size as the trombone mouthpiece he used while playing as a professional trombonist for 12 years.
This lad could wail.
He had a slide version but would only adjust the slide to the root note of the melody his folk-singing girlfriend would play and then go from there.
Because of his backround and his wellconditioned lips, he could play thru several octaves on a mouth piece alone.
When I was in Vancouver last summer I saw a street musician playing a digeridoo. He was quite impressive. A one man band sort of a guy. He played the guitar, had a base drum pedal beating on his suitcase and a digeridoo on a stand in front of him. He sang too. I watched him for an hour or so and was very impressed. I’ve learned to play a number of instruments in my lifetime and I’d really like to have a shot at a didg.
