iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

Thanks Guan! I'm not sure what you mean about side to side... What sounds would you have to make to achieve this?
I was listening to your recording and I can't seem to get the "pop" you get when you do a dithu...is my technique off?

Thanks,

Richard

Hi Richard

From what I can hear and from my point of view along with the "pop" practise I have done I don't think your technique is off but this is more like a different technique altogether. The "standard" Dith is accomplished by flicking the tongue down from behind the teeth/gum ridge along with a little pulse of air.. The "pop dith" is the same but uses a far stronger pulse from the diaphram along with a strong throat action(pulling the back of the tongue upward to close off the throat) along tightening of the lips. That's my slant on it anyway. As for the the "front back, side to side" thing I think now understand a bit of what Guan is saying and I try to use all of my oral cavity space to move my tongue around along with manipulating my lips/embouchure, even cheeks to achieve/change sounds rather that just rigidly sticking my lips on the mouthpiece and blowing... There is one of Guan's clips on Youtube, one of Djalu's master classes I think, where Djalu does actually hint that "once you get used to it" you can move your tongue around, even doing his hand(snake action) movement to illustrate what he means...

Paul

Don't take the words too literally I don't mean that you have to move your tongue side to side though you can try if you want and let us know the result I haven't tried that myself, might try it in the morning 2moro! A bit late now for the neighbours

I had a thought today that a lot of what I hear on here is not wrong per se, like some of the rhythms and tonguings sound similar to '60s field recordings, the way the tongue is used then was less "dexterous" than today's crop of yirdaki wiz kids from eastern Arnhem Land.

Then I listened to the following clip and recognised some modern yirdaki rhythms in there, ah maybe not so much rhythms but the use of timing and syncopation and the play of melody, harmony, voice timbre etc. Today's freestyle yirdaki playing is like this, to create more texture and depth to yirdaki music compared to the generation before:



G

The question I'm asking myself is whether the freestyle yirdaki movement in eastern Arnhem Land n maybe the syncopations themselves are influenced by music like this because that's what the guys are listening to, or whether it is an independent development and has always been there as part of tradition, to keep innovating and to create new music...

G

A rather oblique post but relevant I think...



Nuff song I know hahaha but listen to Shaggy sing those reggae lines and its kinda like modern mandapul freestyling in eastern Arnhem Land tricky syncopations and all!

G