iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

Gday you all

Short question by a newbie concerning retroflex tonguing in traditional style.

I worked through the frequently mentioned "Hard Tongue"- CD for a while now. There is said: "in faster rhythms you take a short breath after every 'dhrll'" As far as I can see in the youtube videos all the great players do so.

Is it normal that this "short breath" is by far the hardest part? I think I made some progress in the rolling sound, the pressure and all, but breathing while retroflexing seems hopeless. Did I miss some crucial instruction? Is there any tip?

Thanks for answering

Hi Jens,

Traditional yidaki style playing does involve faster breathing, where short breaths are snatched in through the nose. You don't need to have your tongue in a retroflexed position when you breathe, it isn't necessary. The difficult thing about these short snatches of air is that you'll be using different parts of your oral cavity to keep the circular breathing. With slower (contemporary meditative) styles of play, the cheeks are doing the work in maintaining circular breathing, but in trad it seems there is more strain in the back of the mouth/throat.

Can anyone else explain better?

Guan

Hi Jens, I deleted your other question as it was a duplication.

Guan

Hi Jens,
I do not know how long you have been playing or rather how intensely you have been practising but I think it will come if you work on it. There are many things which would, at first sight, look impossible to achieve on this CD and they still do to me but working regularly will surely help.

I'd suggest to always start off pretty slowly. You make the first drill sound and right afterwards a snatch of air then another one. Repeat that slowly. Things will fall in place I believe. Also as Guan suggested you do not have to stay in retroflex to breath in. Drill-air-Drill air just in between

cheers

I've been playing quite some time (about 6 years), but not the real stuff I guess

I was infected by traditional style when I visited a workshop with Jeremy Cloake last year. It made me think about playing the didgeridoo completely new. So you will see me asking some more questions in this forum.

Will try to work on it and get rid of some habits like using the cheeks for breathing or let the nose command the process. Speeding the roll-breath-roll-breath up feels tough at the moment but you encouraged me a lot.

Thanks

Hey Hansson,
Look for some instruction on bounce breathing on the web or instructional CDs (I know somebody who made some good ones ). This is the method of pushing air from the gut, like a "ha," then breathing quickly in a response to the action - that's the bounce. This is a method used by heaps of non-trad players. I was doing it for years and then was surprised to learn the Yolngu style quick breath is usually a bounce that happens to have the dhirrl tongue motion along with it.
Randin

Randin told you the trick!

Thanks alot Randin (wow you are here too)

by chance I have three learning CDs in my rack which I remember right now

Will work on it a few month (or years) .. I'm still young

Manythanks from Germany

Jens

Hi all,

If anybody can breath quickly between each dhirrl without a "jump" in the sound, please explain me . In "jump" I mean a sound different due to the expulsion of the air stored in the mouth. When I listen to yolngu players, I don't hear any difference from the rest of the playing, the sound remains constant. That's why when you first hear traditionnal playing you can't not say when the man is breathing. When I hear myself, it's clear when! i hope I am understood. If it's not the case, it's just because you play like a yolngu, with a constant sound between two dhirrl .
Bye
(it's one in my two most important problems of playing)

Hi all,

If anybody can breath quickly between each dhirrl without a "jump" in the sound, please explain me . In "jump" I mean a sound different due to the expulsion of the air stored in the mouth. When I listen to yolngu players, I don't hear any difference from the rest of the playing, the sound remains constant. That's why when you first hear traditionnal playing you can't not say when the man is breathing. When I hear myself, it's clear when! i hope I am understood. If it's not the case, it's just because you play like a yolngu, with a constant sound between two dhirrl .
Bye
(it's one in my two most important problems of playing)

Hi Anthony,

If you can hear a difference between the dhirrls you're breathing on and those you're not, you're either taking too long a breath or have too much air in your mouth which takes time to be expelled.

Your breathing should be almost inaudible and the amount you inhale so small that the sound should not be affected.

Let me know how it goes.

Kyle

Hi Kyle,

I was thinking about that yes (the too long breath), but the fact is: more the rythm is fast more this phenomenon occurs. So I can control a little when it's slow, but when I have to breath very quickly then it's the horrors's museum: my past of modern player reappears! I'm attaching a sound sample illustring this, I think you can hear that the problem is exciting when the rythm become faster.
In fact I listened again the hard tongue and I was able to hear this "jump" between the dhirrl but at very high tempo, not before. (track 28 especially). I wonder if it's not caused by the movement of the tongue from the retroflexed to the interdental position. In fact I don't know why so how to make improve? Any other suggestions? But I will try your option Kyle...

Bonjour Anthony

doing nothing but dhrll-breath in the last days I came across the same problem. Working through the often mentioned "Hard Tongue" CD I noticed, that in the slower demo tracks you can still hear the breathing, and it disappears in the faster tracks.

I also worked with Randins bounce breath concept mentioned above. Having some practice in contemporary style its no problem to make a bounce-breath-bounce-breath sound like a constant dong-dong. What I try at the moment is playing the "dhrll" as a kind of exhaling bounce, so that the inbreath follows mechanically. Kinda works with slow and single "dhrll"s, can't speed it up at the moment.

Having in mind how long some of the great players are doing it, we should give ourselfs some time to practice, I think.

Closetochristmas regards

Jens

Thats what my psychiatrists ordered: find a bunch of people you can talk your problems with

I think that some of the confusion here stems from the fact that there are two types of dhirrl.

The long dhirrl with a breath at the end is very different from the short, paired dhirrls at the end of dith dhu dhirrl dhirrl. The breath will be heard often after a long dhirrl, but when the fast paired ones are used the breath is hidden within the movement.

I wouldn't dwell too long on the intricacies of this, but instead keep playing and practicing until it sounds right. Many players still have issues with breathing - leftover from years of contemporary playing styles, so be aware that you need far less air than you think you do and that you should be comfortable when playing - and breathing all the time. Eventually the breathing becomes a subconscious affair - I don't even think about it when I play, I just breathe in and out my nose whenever it's needed!

When I started seriously learning NEAL style playing, rather than just the rough imitation
that I was doing at the time, I got hung up for a while on dhirrl's. In the end it is like everything.
Listen, practice, imitate, practice, listen... The better you get, the more clearly you understand the
sounds of the trad players that you are listening to.
As Kyle mentions, there are various ways of coupling a dhirrl (in the notation of Hard Tongue) to
a breath and each produces it's own sound.
The really fast dhirrl's have the breath incorporated, the breath beginning while the tongue is still moving backwards.
But don't think about it too much. Just play.
I believe that the biggest problem for contemporary style players when confronting these technical issues of trad playing is simply that they do not yet have enough strength and coordination in their tongue, having relied heavily on their cheeks.
As with anything, this develops with patience and practice.
The sample sounds good Anthony. I reckon you are on the right path. Keep at it mate.
cheers, Martin