I believe that best contemporary didgeridoo players will be those players who are great singers.”
I would like to tell you a story about some knowledge that goes beyond time. Since I am a didgeridoo player, I have to start with my origin, didgeridoo. But I will not go very far away, anyway.
Sometimes I take a step back and take a look of this enormous abstract cosmic beast of total inner didgeridoo world. And for some time, it seems to me three things are pointing out of this mass/mess, so I would like to point them out to you.
First is BREATHING.
This is without doubt the most fundamental phenomena upon which all sound structure is built. Both inhales and outhales. And the very best way I have learned to breathe was to play didgeridoo. I developed my own exercises which focus on breathing, usually with some unbendable time device, such as metronome or rhythm machine.
Second is LIP CONTROL.
Lips are responsible for all those beautiful texture/colour/harmonic changes didgeridoo sound has. First melodies also rely upon it, since toots are done inevitably by control of lips. Best ways to practice lips are also didgeridoo based. I found that trumpet or other brass mouthpieces and inner logic/rules were simply too different to practice didgeridoo way of lips control on them. Didgeridoo is still the ultimate lip training device.
Third is VOICE.
I believe that best contemporary didgeridoo players will be those players who are great singers. Really special quality of voice is that it exists outside of didgeridoo world as a completely independent entity. Even more, it is in a way more primitive, primordial, more strongly connected to human form than didgeridoo. It is the only “instrument” that I feel has this quality. I had been practicing my voice in the tubical boundaries of didgeridoo for quite some time when I felt that I need to go outside of this realm, to the realm of pure voice to allow my voice to grow more freely and vigorously.
Since I was a bit lost in this domain of singing, I had to find a teacher. Since I am a kind of no-institution being, this is the kind of singing I was looking for. FREE singing! And I strongly and very happily resonated with what I have discovered, by pure luck, to be in my home town. By pure luck I say, because later I found out that these singing lessons are very rare.
I discovered the method of “uncovering the voice”, also known as Werbeck method. I will retell it in my words – it is a method which was developed by a 20th century prodigy singing girl who had lost her voice due to harsh academic exercises, and had to regain it from zero. She did it, in the fullest beauty, again, and with help of Rudolf Steiner wrote a book about it, and further developed the method for other people to have benefit of it. This method percieves voice as outside entity, a cosmic voice, to which our bodies are mere receptors. And if our bodies are unconstricted, unbent, not frustrated, not distorted, then the voice goes freely, strongly and beautifully though us. And THAT is singing. Not “us” trying to sing. This method is a lot about letting go of ego, which is very beneficial to our singing. It is beautiful in so many ways… one is that you don’t really need to know anything, literally anything about singing, and you can “cope” with this method perfectly.
Werbeck singing has enriched me in many many ways, but I would like to tell one “picture” which will describe greatly the power of this singing. When I was younger, much much younger, and not so much younger, I trained tae kwon do and gymnastics. I have been doing it a lot, and with time my hips were starting to fall out of their place. It had quite brutal methods of adjusting them, and they were quite painful. It lasted for several years. But when I started to practice singing in Werbeck way, the hips would through singing adjust themselves with no pain. For me it was pure magic. By no other means, including “normal” singing, I could have ever done it like this. Now one can say that Werbeck singing is Mumbo Jumbo, but after experiencing joint adjustment of such easiness and harmony through singing(!), one is left speechless, but with huge smile! But, please, do not get attached to this story. The biggest benefits are, naturally, the ones you get in your singing abilities.
There are many more crazily great aspects of Werbeck singing, and once I might devote some time to describe it, but for now, I would leave it up to you to discover it. How? – you may wonder. Well… I am specially happy that BlackMary, the infamous voice of Druyd, and long time Werbeck singing practitioner, has started go give her singing lessons, and they are open for public! =) If you live close or in Zagreb, and have at least a tiny spark for singing, you feel a bit unadapted to the classical structures of music, and might even lack a bit of confidence, I would with most easy heart, most honestly recommend you to visit Madam BlackMary and let her help you discover your voice which is now roaming free somewhere in space. Jump to her Myspace page to find out how to contact her – GO NOW!
If you are not from Zagreb, well… you can call her to give a workshop! How – simply write her a mail at: [email protected]
I am quite sure you will be very grateful to yourself that you have done it. It is my most warm, most honest recommendation.
May the Voice be with you!
Du