I would like to tell you how I ended up in the best school I was ever in. At first, that definitely didn’t look like a didgeridoo school. There were no obvious road signs for this school that I remember. But the road was nor too long, nor too difficult, obviously, as I am where I am.
The first thing I remember is that I wanted to be a chimney sweep. But somehow I ended up finishing university of mathematics. I prolonged that experience for a little bit, by going for PhD which I abruptly left in the middle, for there was a path far more intriguing to follow. So I became professional didgeridoo player. It was not such a big surprise at that point because I have been very enthusiastic about didgeridoos for a long time, I only never realized the possibility for myself being employed that way.
I remember one piece of advice which helped me, and it was so charmingly said, that I have to mention it here. It was several years ago. At that time I have already been practicing didgeridoo quite much (about 5 hours daily), but I was still not able to live exclusively by playing. It was one of the visit to Ondrej Smeykal in Prague where I met a famous drummer Ondrej was working with. Pavel Fajt. It was one fantastic evening in a fabulous bar, when Mr Fajt told me his historical sentences in his most charming English with hard Czech accent.
“Dudo if you want to become a professional didgeridoo player, you have to do three things;
First. Website.
Second. Solo concerts.
Third. Playing with good musicians.
But first!!! Website.”
Amazingly, I made my website and became a “pro”. I continued to follow this advice and it proved to be wonderful on many occassions.
So I kept going my path and growing as a player, recieving all the education that I needed from my surrounding. The tubes in the first place. And good good musicians I played with. I learned a lot from and extraordinary percussionist Kameni, with who I had privilege to play in a band called Kik’dbit. And I learned, and keep learning extremely lot from piano player and composer Marko Ritosha…
But this year everything has changed… (to be continued)