Didgeridoo playing

How to play the didgeridoo?
A very short lesson


Blow a gentle raspberry - buzz, like when as a child played an airplane - into the didgeridoo, by placing your mouth firmly down the centre of the mouthpiece. You should hear a deep, gentle sound, if the sound is not clear and loud, tighten or loosen up your lips, changing the frequency of their vibration, until you satisfied with the sound clarity. What you hear now is the basic sound of the didgeridoo.
When familiar with this sound, and you can achieve it every time you start playing, you can go to the next step. By opening and closing your jaws you can change the tone of the didgeridoo. Than you learn circular breathing and other playing techniques from didgeridoo websites the Internet is abundant with. Just to mention a couple:


This very short lesson illustrates how easy is to play the didgeridoo! You do not have to go to expensive musical schools, vocalise, do the boring sol-fa day after day, learn the notes, Kodály methods and similar "bunk" - just buzz or yell into the didgeridoo and in no time you are in matey terms with David Hudson. You can even leave out the didgeridoo; just grab a pipe - PVC, exhaust, whatever - and play. This may sound sarcastic to some people, actually it is and, at the same time, it is not.

Didgeridoo sales occupy the number one place in all musical instruments sales, because

  •   it is easy to learn how to play the didgeridoo,
  •   it is a very cheap instrument and, still,
  •   it has a great haunting sound!

    • and because every didgeridoo is different, has its spirituality, your play is your style and it is as good as anybody else's,
  •   hard to tell, if at all, an out of the tune play.

    • Some other things play into the didgeridoo's popularity as well:
  •   it is instant music in the age of the instant coffee, instant love, instant satisfaction...
  •   It is a solo instrument, most often a one man orchestra in the era towards the one person families.
So, in every respect this ancient aboriginal instrument meets the requirements of modern times.


In a 19 page scientific paper titled: The Physics of Dreamtime: An analysis of the acoustical properties of didgeridoo Benjamin Hammond makes some observations, that is worth excerpt here, in front of your first playing experience.

In other brass elements, the mouthpiece serves to regulate the airflow into the horn. Additionally, the mouthpiece itself resonates and adds a formant frequency to the sound. ... This is the complete opposite of the didgeridoo, in which is the only "mouthpiece" is a rim of beeswax to provide a better seal. Since the mouth is literally inside the instrument, the shape of the jaw and the position of the tongue adds at least one resonant chamber, or a formant band, similar to that of a singer. As the advanced didgeridoo player changes the shape of his mouth, the harmonic content is modulated accordingly.

In actuality, the fact that the player's mouth is so involved in the sound production is what gives the didge its complex sound.

Perhaps the most characteristic element of didge's sound are due to the circular breathing which is required to play the instrument for any length of time. ... Though the intention is a consistent stream of air, the resultant sound is anything but consistent. By constantly repositioning the mouth to complete the (circular) breathing process, all of the associated timbral changes take place, altering the sound of the instrument ... the skilled didgeridoo player will capitalize on this effect and use the rhythms caused by this modulation to give a tempo and movement to the song. In this respect the didge is second perhaps only to the voice in its connection to the player. It is impossible to the player to not to be entirely engaged in the music, as the rhythm of the instrument is tied directly to the rhythm of the body.

The extreme range both musically, from 20Hz to 2500Hz, and emotionally provide this instrument with mimicking and dramatic capabilities unrivaled by most other instruments, Western or otherwise.

It is quite an exciting experience you're about to undertake, isn't it? And we have just the right aboriginal musical instruments for this adventure: original aboriginal didgeridoos, with free book and CD on how to play the didgeridoo.

Here and now, you can listen to our favorite didgeridoo player, MacK YidhakY, who adds some South American temper to didgeridoo music. MacK is a performer and organizer of didgeridoo concerts and theaters, and he runs workshops, as well. He has two albums: 2004 DIDGERIDOO TRIBE and CONNECTED just released.