Welcome to the Didgeridoo Tutorial & Lessons section of the www.didgeridoo-store.com! You find here help on how to play didgeridoo, the circular breathing, imitation of animals, birds and surrounding, the healing sounds and rythms of the didj.
1. Body Position
The position you adopt for playing digeridoo must be a comfortable one, standing up or sitting while keeping your head straight. You should also have a your stomach relaxed and have a good sense of it and its muscles for the circular breathing and the enhanced ability to control the air that is breathed in and out of your lungs, for rythms. You should also play towards a wall or in an empty bath so you can hear yourself better.
2. Position of the mouth
he postition of the mouth should either be on the front (the mouthpiece will be positioned straight center on the lips under the nose) or on the side (slightly off the center). It is usually easier to have the mouth piece on the side of the mouth to have more flexible lips and be able to have them vibrate more.
The wax of the mouthpiece helps to seal the air inside the didgeridoo and make it more comfortable for your lips. You must place your lips inside the mouthpiece and press just hard enough to have a good seal. Pressing too hard will stop you to vibrate your lips and not hard enough will let the air out
3. Basic sound
The basic sound is called the drone and it's achieved by blowing gently, vibrating your lips loosely. Puff out your cheeks gently, hold your lips together keeping them loose and blow air through allowing the lips to vibrate.
The tone produced is like a motorboat and not like a trumpet. (If you are getting the trumpet tone you lips are too tight. Try again with looser lips.) Remember that to get the vibrating sound you must not blow hard.
Practice blowing harder and softer to vary the volume of the drone while getting used to your didgeridoo.
Experiment with the different mouth positions.
Change the sound of your drone:
Experiment with different position of your tongue within and also in changing the shape of the mouth.
Try to exercise blowing the minimum air as long as possible.
When you are able to produce about 5 second of sustained drone you can try your vocals.
4. Introducing the vocals or overtones
Animals and nature sounds are very easily achieved. As there is no written music for the didgeridoo you can experience with any sound imaginable:
Grunts, groans, screams, bark, holler, laugh, cry....
First without using the didgeridoo, try using your vocals just like a singer would while you vibrate your lips.
Back to the didgeridoo try one of the following sounds while playing the drone
" kooo" " kooo wee" "kah" "kah" "kah" "kah" "rah" "rrrah"...
A useful exercise is to try words while droning:
Try saying " did -ger- i- doo " " did -ger- i- doo " " did -ger- i- doo "
When opening your lips too much, you loose the vibrations of your lips and the sound stops.
Some of the most common sounds made by players are:
Dingo: makes a growling sound like : "rrraaah-raaah" Barking: make a barking sound "wah" "wah" Kookaburra: makes a high-pitched "kaa-kaa-kaa" sound. Kangaroo: raises and lowers your tongue quickly, hitting it against the roof of your mouth, to create a 'boing-boing' sound, trying to give the rhythm of a bouncing kangaroo.
5. Rhythms
The practice of basic rhythms and beats will enable you to play at various speeds.
Always start slowly trying to get clear and sharp rhythms before trying faster.
Be creative and experiment with your words, mix them around to find your own rhythm.
There is different ways in achieving basic rhythms: The tongue: An easy and fast one is to use the tongue while playing the basic drone trying to say the words:
" tu-tu-tu-tu" " ta-ta-ta-ta" " te-te-te-te" or
" do-do-do-do "da-da-da-da" " de-de-de-de" or
" koo-koo-koo-koo" " kah-kah-kah-kah" " ke-ke-ke-ke" The diaphragm can be used to form a beat, squeeze the stomach muscles and create a belly laugh or groans :
"ha-ha-ha-ha" "he-he-he-he" The cheeks: Using the cheeks to expel the air to create a "wah-wah" sound
6. Circular breathing
Circular breathing is being able to play a sound continuously without the latter stopping.
The basic process of circular breathing can be best understood this way: fill your cheeks with air until they are inflated. Hold your breath at this time. Now breathe in air through your nose without your cheeks loosing any air. Now do the same while letting air out of your cheeks through your mouth by compressing your cheeks. You see! you can let air out of your cheeks while breathing in through your nose, for as long long as there is air in your mouth.
Now, your are playing the didgeridoo, blowing air out of your lungs into it. When you feel you need more air, or rather when you feel your lungs need a refill, the air that you need to refill your lungs will be breathed in through your nose, and in order not too loose the sound, you will at the same time of breathing quick in (through your nose), let the air that is in your cheek into the didgeridoo. The main point here is syncronicity. The time spent on breathing in through your nose must be equivalent or ideally less than the time spent letting air out of your mouth.
So, to resume the circular breathing technique:
1/Blow gently into the didgeridoo the air in your lungs. Your cheeks at this point dont need to be inflated with air.
2/When you feel it is time to refill your lungs, make sure your cheeks are now inflated, your mouth containing as much air as possible, breathe in quickly through the nose, while letting that air in the mouth go, and quickly come back to blowing from your lungs in step 1.
It will take a while but practice is now the only answer ;-)
