Help: How to play a digeridoo?

Subject: How to play a digeridoo?
From: GUEST,Arnie
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 11:03 AM

My daughter has just received a digeridoo as a birthday present. So far she has succeeded in scaring the cat but other than that has no luck playing the thing! I've had a go but fared no better. Blowing into the smaller end seems to produce a range of strange sounds but nothing like the Rolf Harris-type performance. It seems to be designed as an aerobics exercise as the effort involved certainly raises the blood pressure! Anyone got any useful tips (apart from using it as firewood!)

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: 53
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 11:23 AM

the only time i've heard of a digiderro, or whatever, was on the rolf harris record, tie me kangaroo down sport, try to log on to some australlian net page and maybe you can find some answers. BOB

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: Sorcha
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 11:28 AM

Try this page. There is a how to play link, and lots of other stuff.

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 11:59 AM

I managed to get a good sound out of one the first time I tried. The guy at the booth who was selling them told me I was about as good as most younger children who tried. I believe the reason is that playing one of these things requires a lack of concern about looking or sounding ridiculous.

This is what I do. (No, I'm not an expert - I just play one on the internet. I CAN make appropriate noises.)

Mash face onto waxed end of digerido. The seal is important.

Completely relax your mouth and make the biggest raspberry noise you can imagine. Not one of those wimpy little fake fart noises. The lips have got to flap. If you can make a horse-snort sound, it's a good start.

I can't manage circular breathing. I believe the technique is similar to the one employed in blowing bubbles with chewing gum. (You have air trapped in your mouth going out, and can breathe in through your nose at the same time.) I can manage the bubble-blowing technique, but I haven't been able to keep the mashing and lip-flapping going while doing it.

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 09:58 PM

G'day Arnie, Sorcha and Jeri,

That's a great looking site Sorcha linked. It look very thorough and the Real Audios should be a great help.

Just one small tip, from a friend who plays a lot to school groups and gets a lot of kids playing didge: at the stage of training the cheek muscles for circular breathing, it helps if you can immobilise the didge ... so you have both hands free ... and gently push in the sides of your cheeks, as you expel the trapped air.

I think this just helps focus your mind on the muscular action needed - and, once you get the idea, you can dispense with the prompt. One other though would be that you should not start out too optimistically ... don't try to get a really big didge resonating first off. I started with a couple of lengths of old 'Hoover' vacuum cleaner pipe. (Come to think of it ... there was a bit of a minor scandal some years back when a Northern territory Didgeridu competition was won by a bloke with a length of water pipe!)

BTW: My friend of the first suggestion reckons the best thing to start with is a length of 38mm (er ... 1½ inches in Noah's Ark units) PVC pipe. Smaller pipe seems to work well with littlies.

PS to BTW: On a site telling about cheap ways to make instruments, someone said K-Mart sold ready-made didges for 98¢ ... they were golf club handle protectors - plastic tubes wide enough to slip over a club handle, with a rolled over end that was small enough not to pass the handle ... making a great mouth piece.

Unfortunately, Australian K-Marts had never heard of them ... and the club protectors in golf pro shops were the new improved model ... with perforated sides to save weight and minimise condensation in wet weather ... and no good for didging!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 10:04 PM

I can only 'circular breath' in the wrong direction... aka 'French Inhaling'... any good tips on learning circular breathing?

.-)

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 07:37 AM

Circular breathing is one of those things that just 'clicks' eventually. It seems to help if you concentrate more on the letting out the air part (needs careful control)& let the breathing in take care of itself (just a quick indraw of breath).
I am beginning to get the hang of it, and learnt by imitating more advanced didge-players. It seems to be one of those things that falls apart if you think too hard about what you're doing.

Kris
PS - cats LOVE didges, they get all excited when they find out we can purr too.

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: GUEST,cyder_drinker (looking for me cookie)
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 01:06 PM

Circular breathing: You can't fill your lungs in one go! It takes a few inhalations to get a good head of steam up. If you watch a good didge player, you'll see their cheeks going in and out all the time as they're topping up the reservoir of air.
It's a technique I'm trying to adapt to my flute playing (without much success at the moment!)

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: GUEST,Arnie
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 03:10 PM

Thanks for the tips which should prove useful - that link of Sorcha's is great. My daughter already plays flute so is into circular breathing which seems to be the key to this thing..

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: Snuffy
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 07:21 PM

Didgeridon't

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: Dead Horse
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 02:16 PM

What happens if you stick your mouth into the fat end, and suck?
I believe the pygmies tried using didges, but the poison darts kept falling out.

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: breezy
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 02:57 PM

Does this mean singing is not a strong point?.
I gather that they come in different keys.
I use one by getting someone who can play it play it.

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 03:48 PM

Well there's many at sessions that share the opinion that its a Didgereedon't. And as for circular breathing try a few excersises on circular letters like "O"
**BG**
I know a guy who makes them and even he hyperventilates playing them. He found you can play two on one pair of lips at the same time and get two notes but if you tried making one by joining two together via a Y shaped tube and blowing into the single end of the Y you get one note controlled by the combined length of the tubes. This is all to do with nodes anti nodes but is fairly logical. You can hum sing and do a lot of vocallising as well as playing as a low frequency trumpet. There is a one-handed guy in Sydney who plays one like a trombone, (plastic tubes sliding inside each other).

Subject: RE: Help: How to play a digeridoo?
From: artbrooks
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 04:44 PM

I suggest trying a chain saw.