Mouth Positions

There are two mouth positions you can use with the didjeridu. Each has its own advantages. I suggest that you try each position and find the one that works best for you.

Center Blown Method

With the center blown position, the lips are centered in the middle of the mouth hole. This is a little easier for beginning didjeridu players. The advantage of this position is that you have more room for lip movement to shape the tone of the didjeridu.

Side Blown Method

With the side blown position, the mouth hole is placed off center. About two-thirds of the lips are used starting from one edge and extending past the center area of the lips. The advantage of the side blown position is that you have the center area of the lips for shaping the sound and the side of the lips to help sustain the drone of the didjeridu. With this method, it takes a little more mouth movement to vary the tone of the didjeridu, but the tone will be richer with a wider spread of harmonics.

Generally, the side blown method is preferred by most didjeridu players although there are also excellent didjeridu players that use the center blown method.

Producing the Basic Drone

To produce the basic drone, first place the lips centered in the middle of the mouth hole. Only light pressure against the lips is needed to make a complete air seal. By using light, gentle pressure, it will be easier to produce a tone, and it will give you more freedom of lip movement. It will also allow more blood flow to the lips and be more comfortable to play.

To make the basic drone, blow into the didjeridu through lightly closed lips. The sound that you are trying to make is very low pitched as if you are making a motorboat sound. If the tone is more like a trumpet, then you need to blow softer and hold the lips looser allowing them to extend slightly into the mouth hole of the didjeridu.

How you shape your lips will effect the tone produced. For this first basic drone, try shaping your mouth as if to say “Duuu...”, but with out the use of the vocal cords. The leading “D” gives the didjeridu a boost of air to help get the tone started more easily, and the sustained “uuu...” is the actual basic drone sound.

The didjeridu produces a tone rich in harmonics. The sound produced is actually a combination of 42 frequencies or pitches all playing together simultaneously.³

Throughout this booklet, I have used sound maps⁴ as visual representations of the actual sounds produced on the Hall Didjeridu. The top band of Map 1 shows changes in the volume of the sound. The bottom section of the sound map starting from the lowest band shows the fundamental tone and separate bands for each of the additional harmonic tones.

The basic drone, as seen in the sound map, stabilizes into a continuous, steady sound with very little variations. Once the drone is started, it will take very little air to sustain a soft drone. Blowing harder will increase the volume of the drone.

Before moving on, I suggest that you try out the practice points listed at the end of each section. A working knowledge of each section will be necessary to proceed with the next area of instruction.

Practice Points for the Basic Drone

• Make sure that the tone produced is pitched low like the sound of a motorboat or fog horn and not like the sound of a trumpet.
• Practice blowing harder and softer to vary the volume of the basic drone.
• Experiment with both the center blown and the side blown methods and see which one works best for you. Notice that each method imparts a slightly different sound to the drone.
• You should be able to produce about 5 seconds of sustained drone before continuing to the next section.

Changing Harmonics with Vowel Tones

Besides varying the total volume level, the player can also vary the volume level of the individual harmonic tones produced on the didjeridu.

If you compare Maps 1 and 2, you can see that varying the shape of the lips causes some harmonic tones to be emphasized over other harmonic tones. You will hear this as a higher pitched gliding tone over the top of the basic drone of the didjeridu.

The harmonic mix of the didjeridu is controlled by shaping the mouth and lips to form different vowel tones. The sound produced by vowel tones closely mimics actual spoken vowels sounds. It will take some practice at first to sustain the basic drone while altering the shape of your lip to find the exact shape that corresponds with each vowel tone.

Though out this booklet, the exercises and examples are shown using didjeridu notation.

Practice Points for Vowel Tones

• Practice each vowel tone until you can produce clear distinct vowel tone changes:
  

      ee aa ah oo uu
  

• Try linking different repeating vowel tones together in chains like:
  

      |: we - oo - we - uu :|(repeat)
  

• Try slowly gliding the vowel tones together so that the vowel sounds blend together and form a continuously changing vowel sound:

      |: wee=oo=wee=oo :|
  

“H” Tones - Use of the Diaphragm

Up to this point, the basic drone and how to alter the drone using vowel tones have been discussed. Now we will learn how to create breaks in the drone to create rhythm by using the diaphragm. The diaphragm is the large muscle used to expel air from the lungs. With the use of the diaphragm, you can control the air flow ranging from a subtle vibrato to strong bursts of air. This can be done by adding an “h” sound in front of the vowel tone as in ; “ He, Hah or Hu ”. A subtle vibrato would look like this, “he-he-he...”. Breaks in the tone can be created by adding more space between the tones as in “hee hee hee” or stronger short bursts as in “He’ He’ He’ ”.

Practice Points for “H” Tones

• Practice the following exercise to develop control of the diaphragm. Start the rhythm line soft and very close together, and then increase the intensity and separation with each consecutive pulse.
  

      hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo haa haa haa haa hee Hee’ Hee’ Hee’ HEE’
  

• Try combining “H” tones with sustained vowel tones.
  

      hee-hee-huu... hee-hee-huu... ho-ho-ho-ho-hee...
  

Use of the Cheek Muscles

The cheeks and cheek muscles are important in the playing of the didjeridu. They are just as important as the lungs and diaphragm in controlling the air flow into the didjeridu. Using the lungs and the diaphragm is a very natural and, of course, necessary thing to do. The use of the cheeks and cheek muscles to control air flow takes practice and time to develop. The cheek muscles will play a significant role in circular breathing explained later in this booklet. Cheek squeezes add another unique sound to your didjeridu repertoire and will help you prepare for circular breathing. The cheek squeeze is done by puffing out the cheeks and forcefully expelling the air from the mouth. A cheek squeeze could be written like:

    Du^wit’ or Du^wit^wit’

The cheeks are puffed out during the “du” sound and the cheek squeeze occurs with the “^w” sound. The “du^wit” tone produces a quick strong burst of sound and adds accents to your playing. The cheek squeeze can also be used in a sustained drone as in:

    |: ga^wee-uu...ga^wee-uu... :|

In the above rhythm line, the “ga” sound causes the pitch to drop and then the “^w” is the cheek squeeze, followed by the sustained vowel tones “ee-uu...”

Practice Points for Cheek Squeezes

• For the next few weeks, practice the following exercise a few minutes every day. They will help develop the cheek muscles for circular breathing.

    |: gaa^wee-uuu gaa^wee-uuu ga^weu^wee-uuu :|
 
    |: Ga^wit’ ga^wit’ :|

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