Learn to Play the Didjeridu

LEARN TO PLAY THE DIDJERIDU

"Learn to Play the Didjeridu" contains five lessons in all. In addition, there are sections on story telling, composition and meditation. Outlines of the first three lessons are available here for your review.

[Make a Didj] [Lesson One] [Lesson Two] [Lesson Three] [How to Order]

Lesson One

1. The basic drone - Example of the basic drone Puff out your cheeks and push out your lips, drawing the corners of your mouth back a bit, allowing the center part of your lips to be loose. Blow air through your lips, allowing them to vibrate making a low pitched buzzing sound. Now transfer this loose lip buzzing technique to the mouthpiece of the didjeridu. There are two styles : straight on with the mouthpiece centered on the lips below the nose or to the right or left of center.

2. Creating your first rhythms -

Gut Slaps (or bounced note) - Example of the bounced note. Our first rhythm is a basic 4/4 beat produced by bouncing the air through our buzzing lips using the tummy muscles just as if we were expelling a deep belly laugh (eg - ha!ha!ha!ha!).

Tongue - Example of single tonguing. Next, try producing the same rhythm using the tongue by mouthing the word "Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta". The tip of the tongue is placed just behind the upper front teeth and as quickly snapped downward.

Cheeks - Example of varied cheek squeezes. Playing the basic drone allowing your cheeks to puff out, then squeeze the cheeks together slowly allowing them to puff out again.

3. Circular Breathing -

A ) It is helpful to do some strengthening exercises. Droning while squeezing the cheeks as described above will help.

B) Timing. Puff out your cheeks and use your lips to make a small opening in the center of your mouth as if blowing into a straw. Try to make a small steady stream of air come out of this opening using only the air in your cheeks. By placing the palm of your hand in front of your lips you should be able to feel the air stream. Breath in through your nose while you are squeezing the air in your cheeks out.

C) Transfer the previous step to the didjeridu. Try to allow your lips to vibrate loosely so a low short tone is produced. It should sound something like "harrumph". Now blow the air in your lungs through your lips letting them vibrate as in the basic drone. Allow your cheeks to puff out as you run out of air and then repeat the process from the beginning of this step.

D) Continue working with step C increasing the speed such that the pause between the sound emitted by your cheek squeeze and the sound of your basic drone decreases.

E) To work on smoother transfers between air coming from your cheeks and air coming from your lungs, place a straw in a glass of water. The glass should be only about a third full. Alternating cheek squeezing and blowing, try to keep a steady stream of bubbles coming from the end of the straw - breathing in while you squeeze your cheeks.

Lesson Two

4. Harmonics A) Playing the basic drone, mouth the vowels sound "E" then shape your mouth as if your were saying the word "Oh". Notice the harmonic fall?
B) Careful lip shaping can also affect the harmonics of the didjeridu. By altering the shape of the opening between your two buzzing lips, much as in whistling, you can create a variable upper harmonic sound. Here is a Real Audio sample of the vowel sounds AEIOU
C) It's now a small step to articulate syllables. Try mouthing the syllable , "did". Follow that with the syllable, "jer". Here is a Real Audio sample of this technique using the word Didjeridu.
D) By taking a word like didjeridu, and breaking it up into distinct syllables who's order can be varied, a wide variety of musical rhythms can be improvised.

5. Voicings - By using the vocal chords while playing the basic drones, various effects can be added. There are two basic categories : singing or humming various notes and animal imitations.
A) While playing the basic drone, try making a sound like a dog barking with your vocal chords. Here is a Real Audio sample of dog barking
B) Singing distinct or indistinct notes while droning adds a rich texture to the total effect.
C) A good effect, when doing vocals, is to vary the volume of your voice in relation to the didjeridu. Here is a Real Audio Sample of this effect

6. Bounced Breaths - There is another, more rhythmic, way to circular breath. Go back to lesson one and review our first rhythm which was accomplished with gut slaps. What we want to do here is bounce the air through our buzzing lips and snatch a quick sniff of air through the nose immediately after.

Lesson Three

7. Special Effects - Numerous sound effects can be obtained while playing the didjeridu using the cheeks, tongue and jaw.
A) Tongue Slaps - By rapidly bringing the tongue from the back of the mouth to the front of the mouth and back again, a sound similar to a bubble bursting may be created.
B) Cheek Slaps or Expulsions - While playing the basic drone, let your cheeks puff out. Sharply, contract both cheeks as if your were blowing a spit wad out of a straw.

8. Jaw drops While playing the basic drone, drop the jaw downward parting the front teeth and then return it to the normal position. You should hear the drone drop in pitch and then return to it's previous note.

9. Adding vocals to special effects - To add another dimension to tongue slaps, cheek expulsions and jaw drops, experiment with using your vocal chords to voice different pitches during the maneuver.

10. Overtones Example of the first overtone playing. Overtones are the result of increasing the frequency of the buzzing lips by tightening them as is done in playing brass instruments like the trumpet or french horn. Play the basic drone and tighten up your lips while slightly increasing the air flow through them. This should result in a note whose pitch is approximately a tenth above the dominant Now practice going from the basic drone to the overtone note and back to the basic drone. With some practice, you should be able to move between the two notes smoothly. Start slowly and gradually try and make the overtone note as brief as possible. I've written a more extensive lesson on the subject of overtones which includes several exercises and suggestions on how to incorperate this sound into your playing. Just click here!

To order the booket directly from me, send a check or money order in the amount of $7 to Ed Drury, 8605 SW Garden Lane, Portland, OR 97223. For orders outside the US please send $10 US.

The 1994 cassette release, "Learn to the Play the Didjeridu" has been Digitally remastered and put on CD almost 15 years to the day after it's original release. This new version includes an additional 16 minutes of drum tracks to practice rhythmic playing with. These are high quality tracks suitable for using in remixes. The CD version is $5 plus shipping and can be ordered using paypal Click Here or most major credit cards Credit Card Orders click here. To download both the CD (various formats) and the booklet (pdf) for only $6 click Here.

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