NEIL'S NEOPHILIA: DIDGE YA KNOW I LOVE TO DOO IT?

Rain, rain, go away … not really but the constant rain all this week certainly dampens my spirits and darkens my busking clouds (mixed metaphor intended).  And the intended pun in my snappy title has been resurrected (sort of) from some past posts about my playing a didgeridoo, DOOIN’ STANDUP … (November 04, 2012), JUST DIDGERIDOO IT … (October 12, 202), and A DIDGE OR A DOO … (October 30, 2012).

Anyway, this perpetual rain has me re-acquainting with my didgeridoo, and for my busking that is good.  My enthusiasm for my didgeridoo has bees waxed again, and today I’ll extend another olla prodrida on didgin’ it.

First off, I’ll mention, dear readers, that busking with a didge attracts bald guys with bare feet and hippy girls dancing in the rain in the park.  Baron, my favorite buskmate, and I have taken to walking the four kilometer Blue Trail around Wascana Lake while blowing our didgeridoos.  Such a peripatetic activity does attract lots of attention.

WASCANA LAKE PATH

Though every time we doo this, from the peloton of people stopping and discussing our didges, two bald men in bare feet especially come to mind.  Stereo-typically they looked like Zen Buddhist monks and behaved as such.  They were quite the pair walking in light summer leggings, bald without shirts and shoes.  They were friendly and curious and talked lots about our didge playing, how soothing it was, and how important it was for guys like Baron and self to be so evangelical, spreading our drones of love along the path and across the lake.

The hippy girl in Victoria Park, tossing helicopter leaves and dancing on the grass, could not resist joining me on the park bench, sitting right next to me and asking about my didge whilst I droned.  She used to be a school teacher and decided that tutoring was a higher and more worthy calling (for her).  Woodstockish in apparel and phatic chat, she was in the process of selling her “gas guzzling car” and moving into her mom’s, to save money and stay closer to downtown Regina. 

Groovy huh?  Not really, really heavy, but … man … feelin’ groovy for sure.

FEELIN' GROOVY

HIPPY HELICOPTER LEAVES

The didgeridoo is an instrument of joy, being the instrumental metaphor and synonym for meditation.  Blowing guttural raspberries while walking a littoral path or while seated on a park bench are the perfect venues for the pure and ethereal resonating rhythms of the didge, an individual expression enchanting joy to all those within listening range.

Knowing how much we love and play our didgeridoos, JOANNE CROFFORD of BOOMTOWN DRUMS, gave us two didges (for free) just last Saturday, one wood and the other synthetic.  (A couple summers ago while busking at Regina Beach, Canada, Joanne presented us each with her new-style quivers, hand-sewn specifically for our didges.) 

If the earth could speak it would sound like the didge.  The haunting hums of the didge can transport across water and rise above trees and can attract … bald men with bare feet and hippy girls dancing in the rain in the park.

My love for the didge is a direct repercussion (pun intended) of my love for busking.  I LOVE BUSKING.  Being a Canadian, for the sake of body comfort and convenience I am restricted to being a three season guitar and harp busker.   A few years ago I decided I could be a four season busker.  I mean, really, I could pull on my toque and parker, my snow pants and snow boots, and holding a didge with my mittens, I could drone all day.   But first, I’d have to get a didge and learn how to play it.

Getting a didge was easy; I bought a synthetic red Meinl from Long and McQuade.  

  

And then Baron bought one from Joanne at Boomtown Drums.  Being a professional busking percussionist, Baron had been a regular consumer at Boomtown Drums for years.  

It took about an hour of self-learning to blow the raspberry drone sound.  Three years later after viewing a hundred YouTube videos I’m still learning to circular breathe.  I can huff and puff but can’t quite blow your house down yet but … I am getting it … learning to breathe in through my nose … breathe out through my lungs … then puff air out my cheeks while inhaling through my nose … continue the cycle.  It could be delusional thinking but I’m now good enough to didge busk this winter.  

I won’t be strumming; I won’t be thrumming; I will be humming.

My CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:  Baron and Yatri on the Cajon ... NHL Scout, Brad Hornung and his mother, Terry Hornung listening to the beats!

YATRI, THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL