part of the reason I continue to play is because i could bend notes as soon as i picked it up too... it just felt, well, natural... ---------- Kyzer's Travels
Love the sound of the didge. My next instrument. The bummer is they come in a variety of keys like harps. Bit difficult to carry in your pocket.
Great instrument for buskers. Every Oz street market always has a didge busker. Louder than just about anything else without amplification. Always attract loads of attention if played well.
Jonsp.... are they difficult to play? What key for starters?
Hell yeah. I learned didj before harp too. I havn't really played mine in a while either. Harp kinda took over! I still have plans to build a PVC one where I can change the length so I can play notes like a trombone. One day, one day.... ---------- ------------------ The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
it dosnt matter what key you get, they will all act the same. they are a little difficult to play. the hardest thing about playin didgeridoo is circular breathing which i can not do as you can tell. there are many tips an tricks to learn how to do it but i just cant seem to manage it. mine is a real didge. a eucilyptius tree (sp?) hollowed out by termites. payed like $300 something for it. but im sure you can get em cheaper being that there made where you live. ----------
This guy plays a big assortment of different keyed didgeridoo's. Plus he plays just about everything else and has quite an amazing sound set up( don't ask as I don't have a clue on that stuff). He also plays a bit of harp.
I saw him at a market a month or so back and he had a large audience who were snapping up his CD's.
Another guy worth checking out is Juzzie Smith who successfully uses Harp & Didge. Juzzie is a pro busking performer & is often seen with huge crowds at local markets .
Last Edited by on Feb 09, 2010 10:22 PM
My sister bought me a didge back from Oz, like yours a real one hollowed out by termites. Her flight stopped over in India and she had a problem explaining what it was through customs, they did not believe it was a musical instrument. She had to unwrap it and try to explain.
Jon... Yeah, I can circular breath. I learned THAT in a day, but took me 2 years to get my first bend! (granted that I tried harder at circular breathing than I did at first for bending). I have a eucalyptus didj in low E, I think. I had a Bamboo one in A, but I dropped it and it split open (boo). You can't really vary the pitch of a normal didj too much (a little by lowering your jaw), so you have to get a bunch of different keys if you want to play along to various songs. That's why guys like John Butler have multiple didj's with them on on stage. The key of a didj is related tot he rsonant space inside it. This translates directly to length * diameter. If you keep diameter a constant, then you can change the pitch by changing the length. Therefore, I think it ought to be possible to make a didj out of two pieces of PVC, a wider diameter one and a smaller diameter one, where the thinner one slides down into the wider one. You'd just slide it down to raise the pitch, and slide it out to lower the pitch. Then the didj could be played like a "regular" instrument, where instead of being a drone with some rhythmic characteristics, it could potentially play simple melodies. Or at least some simple bass lines. This ought to work, but I have not tried it out... ---------- ------------------ The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
Oh, yeah, the eucalyptus one I paid $150, but the bamboo one I paid only like $15 for. The Eucalptus one is "real" (ie. naturally craved out by white ants), but the bamboo one was "fake" (ie. made in thailand or indonesia by children, I suppose). You can find a lot of plans on the internet for making your own out of PVC pipe or bamboo rods you find from the home store. This is a good way to go if you are just learning, and don't want to spend a lot of bucks. ---------- ------------------ The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
Isaac- The hard part would be getting the seal at the slide working well so that it was airtight but also slid well. I think a trombone accomplishes this mostly by having a pretty long overlap on the slide and a lot of precision. I've never tried a didgeridoo. I just hope it doesn't have a spit valve.
haha! the only valve on a didj is your lips! :) yeah, there would def need to be some sort of seal. i've thought about it for a while, and that's the one major obstacle that keeps from doing it yet... ---------- ------------------ The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
Isaac- It looks like they have some cool ones online, but they all seem to be factory made. I can't seem to find any slide DIY ones. I've wanted to make a set of PVC pan flutes for a while but I never seem to get around to it.
Oh wow...cool... Someone beat me to it! I had originally though of this like 8 years ago when I first started playing the didj, but never got around to it... Those both look REALY cool. I still bet it would be relatively simple to make one yourself out of two different gauge PVC pipes. I'll have to go down to Home Depot and start fucking around in the plumbing department! ;) ---------- ------------------ The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
