I was in the Trade Aid Shop last week, buying gifts, when I spotted a few didgeridoo leaning in the corner. Some of you may remember I bought a genuine Australian, termite hollowed, hardwood didge earlier this year. It's a beautiful instrument and I've been teaching myself to play it ever since.
I'd been wanting to try a bamboo didgeridoo, just to see what the difference in sound is like. Most didge players say there's nothing like the sound of a genuine Aussie hardwood didge. I've heard others say that a cheap bamboo didge is easier to play and learn on. So I tried the various bamboo didgeridoo in the corner of the Trade Aid shop (to the delight of the two ladies behind the counter) and decided they are both right. The bamboo didgeridoo does sound quite different, but is still a lot of fun to play. I ended up buying this one...
The bamboo didge is a bit shorter, has a much lighter sound, and does seem a little easier to play. It doesn't take as much breath to hold a drone, so I have more 'lung power' left to try new sounds. However, it really doesn't quite resonate with the same deep richness of the hardwood didge, but it did only cost about 10% of the price. So now I find myself trying new things with the bamboo didge, learning the basic technique for a new sound, then transferring that learning to the hardwood didge.
Here's a little sample of the sound of each didge. (if there's any 'real' didge players reading, no laughing, OK?).
(In case you're wondering, I made those sounds bites through the tiny little microphone on the front of this laptop using a great little piece of 'slimware' called Audacity. I highly recommend this program for any tooling around with sound you want to do. Only 2.4mb to download, fast, incredibly easy to use, and best of all, its free and open source. Try it!)
9:50:34 PM 
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