Today I’m practicing in short 10-15 minute sessions spread throughout the day. So far five of them. The goal this morning was to just get a drone out of the didge. Thankfully that worked out pretty well. Meaning, I managed to get a drone for part of the ten minutes. Don’t use a clock, that’s just about how long I can go before getting light-headed.
I suppose the getting light-headed part might be something to look into — wrong breath, wrong technique, mucho pollen, plastic bag over my head — I’m sure there is something that will need to be changed. But, later for that. Right now my only goal is to get on the drone as quickly as possible.
Since I definitely don’t have any form of circular breathing, I lose the drone every time I take an in-breath. Breathing through the nose is natural for the didge. Easy to be inspired to inspire through the nose given the didge is full of hot moist air that is being breathed into it when played.
Some of the sessions are better than others. There is a definite improvement as the day goes by. And, I’m starting to cheat a little. Instead of sticking to my original intention of just getting the embrasure right as quickly as possible as often as possible, I’ve started experimenting with tonality in the drone. I have about five seconds each breath to experiment. Some interesting colorations.
I have a feeling it is going to be like this for a few days.