It’s a question that comes up again and again: “How do I stop going round in circles? How do I stop playing the same rhythms over and over? Where can I find new ideas?” Recently, a Wakademy student asked me once more. And since so many of you are asking yourselves the same thing, I wanted to share here the three ways I suggested to him to find new didgeridoo rhythms.
The first two rely on analysis. The third, on the contrary, is a much more intuitive path. And you’ll see that they complement each other wonderfully.
Way 1: listen to didgeridoo… and try to reproduce it
It sounds very simple, and yet… Listening to didgeridoo is first of all a wonderful source of motivation. And above all, it’s the best way to train your ear.
Take a piece you love. Listen to it again, and again, and again. Then try to reproduce it. I’ll warn you right away: at first, it won’t sound like it at all! You may feel you’re playing exactly the same thing, and then when you play it for someone, they won’t recognise the piece at all. That really doesn’t matter.
What counts are all the questions this exercise will raise. Which circular breathing is this person playing? Are the cheeks puffed out or not? Is it really fast? Because sometimes it feels very fast, when it’s simply sounds placed very close together on a rather slow pulse (sixteenth notes, if you read music). By asking yourself these questions again and again, you’ll start to understand what’s going on in other people’s playing… and in your own.
To help you get started, I’ve begun publishing analyses of pieces on my YouTube channel, like the one on Denra Dürr’s very unique style, or the analysis of my piece “Le vent dans le dos“. Watch how I go about it, then try to do the same on your side.
And I’ll let you in on a secret: the periods when I listen to a lot of didgeridoo are almost always the ones when I play the most. I listen again to pieces I discovered ten or fifteen years ago, and I hear subtleties in them I thought I knew by heart. I was a bit arrogant, no doubt! There were still so many things left to decode in the playing of these players… What a beautiful lesson in humility.
Way 2: pick from rhythm videos, with a critical eye
Second way: go looking for rhythms in videos where players explain them. On my channel, I’ve shared quite a few, with their explanations (they’re in this playlist). But I’m far from the only one! Especially in the English-speaking world.
That said, I don’t want to be unkind, but it’s not always crystal clear. It often happens that a player doesn’t sing exactly what he plays in his didgeridoo. Or that he says he breathes one way when he actually breathes another. Or that he talks about puffed-out cheeks… when they aren’t. In short, it can quickly turn into a merry mess!
And that’s exactly what makes the exercise so exciting. As you try to reproduce it, you’ll say to yourself: “Wait, is he or she puffing out the cheeks here? No… So where exactly is the breath happening?” The more you ask yourself this kind of question, the more you’ll develop your critical sense, towards others as much as towards yourself. And honestly, the best way to progress is to question yourself. As a teacher, I bring a few answers… but deep down, what I should really bring is questions!
• • •
“Doubt is the beginning of wisdom.”
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Way 3: let the sounds blossom
The third way is of a completely different nature. It doesn’t go through the mind or through analysis, but through intuition. In my own playing, this intuitive part developed long before all the analysis I share today in my videos. And I sincerely believe that it’s by mixing the two that we move forward best.
The principle is simple: breathe in, breathe in, breathe in. With a nice stable sound, let yourself go, speed up a little, and let the sounds come by themselves. They’ll blossom, often at the moment of the circular breathing, in that place where we’re not really aware of what’s going on. It’s your didgeridoo whispering a path for you to follow. Only a whisper… so you have to listen closely.
What you may be missing isn’t technique. It’s listening. In workshops, I often say to a student: “Do you hear that sound, there?” “No…” “Play it again. That sound!” “Oh yes!” “Try to amplify it.” And little by little, we discover that this sound comes rather from the cheeks, the tongue… Or from somewhere else.
Because yes!
Every sound is linked to a part of your body, remember that: your body is the instrument. The didgeridoo is only its amplifier.
At first, a single path will open up to you, the one you’ll take almost every time. Then a second, a third, a fourth… And over time, you’ll draw a map that belongs to you alone. Your own world. If this path speaks to you, I’ve described it step by step in Letting go on the didgeridoo: a 3-step method.
To conclude
Going round in circles is no fate. It’s often the sign that you’re ready to take a new step. Listen, reproduce, question… then let yourself be carried and listen to what your instrument has to tell you. Analysis and intuition, hand in hand.
To build all this into your everyday practice, I suggest a 4-step practice routine. And if you’d like solid foundations to build your own rhythms, my free course on the basics of rhythm (in French) is made for that.
And if you feel that your breathing habits keep locking you into the same rhythms, that’s exactly what we explore in The Secret of the 7 Breaths: discovering the seven circular breaths to break free from the straitjacket of habits and open up new rhythmic paths.
And you, which piece do you dream of reproducing? Tell me in the comments. Happy blowing!
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