iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

I know this might sound like a stupid question, but I have a cheap eucalyptus/Termite D# didge, I purchased from Didgeridoo Breath a few weeks back for a little under $200. I got it to learn on. It sounds ok, and you can do the basics on it.... But I want to really start learning WAL and NEAL, and traditional styles asap. I can't afford a genuine Didge for a couple of months, and was wondering if it would be possible to learn WAL/NEAL on the type of Didge I currently have, properly. I guess I was also wondering, if you got a proficient WAL or NEAL player, and the tried to play my didge, would they be able to do WAL or NEAL on it convincingly? If you wanted to learn WAL/NEAL style, and you only had $200-$400 to spare, what would you learn on? This is a poor mans WAL/NEAL player question Thanks, Adam.

Well you can also practice WAL/NEAL styles or any other style without a didj' too
Just making mouths sounds...

You can ski a snowy mountain slope by just attaching cartboard to your shoes.
You can drive on the highway with a bicycle.
You can jump from a plane with several plastic-bags hanging over your head (I wouldn't try this though).
You can do anything with everything... it just makes it harder to do.

Excellent answer!!!


Paul

Adam, thats a good question. Im pretty much in the same boat as you....if you might remember. I am in the process of learning the NEAL trad style on my $100 D-note didge. It has taken me about the last 2 months to learn to play front-on. I originally played side-on but found this to make tooting very difficult, almost impossible. The other thing I did was reduce the diameter of my wax mouth piece to about 25mm to be more like a typical trad mouth piece. Im good at tooting now but not much else by way of trad playing but its a step in the right direction I guess. The dith-dhu, witj-dju and dhirrl all seem to sound the same though. More practice needed or maybe it really is the didge's fault. What have you been practicing? Have you made any progress so far?

Nick

Hi
Just to add my 2 penneth.. I reckon you should be able to play dith du dhirrl /dup a dhirrl /dit a mor etc on anything as long as you can get a drone out of it in the first place, whether it will sound as it should though may be a matter of opinion. I just think it's down to practise and if you can toot your didge now then the other tongue sounds will come in time. Yes I play Neal styles with a smallish mouthpiece which I find better for the more modern approach of playing faster rhythms with lots of toots but prefer a slightly bigger one when I try to play slower (Djalu) type rhythms where more texture is required. WAL can be any size as long as I can get a drone as there are no toots to worry about(although some do creep in if get carried away, ha ha )

Good luck and keep up with that practise

Paul

I do agree that dith-du and witj-dju do sound very similar at first but it is good practise to try to get the correct tongue action (dith-du) right from the start in your playing. If you listen carefully you will notice the dith-du sound when played correctly is a more "punchy"sound as the tongue is flicked down from the gum ridge and given a bit of "umph" by a small amount of exhalation from the diaphram. The dhirrl is and should sound different though. When you play the dhirrl try to play make a drong drong sound as you flick your tongue back on your gum ridge behind you teeth and give a little push from your diaphram/back of the throat to get a bit of power. You can also almost dispense with the tongue altogether and just use your throat and a drop jaw action to get the same sound. Just play around with it ,with and without the tongue and it will be surprising how many variations you can get on the "dhirrl" sound. One thing, don't get too hung up on trying to make/say the dhirrl sound as such, I was doing this for ages and it just ends up sounding false. Listen to a few of the top players, you won't find a literal dhirrl, dhirrl sound anywhere but you will hear a big variation in the way they translate the principal of the written "dhirrl" sound in their playing. I suppose to my ears Mi***y Mu****g**r comes the closest to playing a literal "dhirrl" with players like Larry Gurruwiwi, Nelson Dhapanarra and Adam Marrilaga using a strong tongue action to get some nice "rolling" sounds but many others seem to use more of the throat/jaw drop action to create the "dhirrl" sound.

Beat of luck

Paul