‘Long didgeridoo’ journey

Many things are changing in the didgeridoo world. I notice more and more players enjoy the richness of the deep didgeridoo underworld. I have some new ideas, and works about it, so hopefully it will inspire you in some way that will surprise me later.
There are two aspects what I would like to talk about.
The Joint and The Model.
Since the beginning of my long didgeridoo journey, like everyone who has done it, I’ve had a question how to assemble didgeridoos together. Of course, this is solvable in many ways, and some are much better than the other.
Let’s see the list of things that must be respected.
1. The point is that we can release the joint and disassemble the didge
2. The joint must be airtight
3. It must be either firm enough not to break when force is applied on one end, or flexible
4. Visually acceptable for live performances. So no nude people holding your didgeridoo tight.
5. Doable in reasonable amount of time, otherwise you lose the will to practice or perform.

So far I’ve done it in at least 4 different ways…
First. The tape joint. That is very simple to do, and it works. It is good that it is like that so anyone can try deep didges, not only (successful) rocket scientists.
Second. I made an epoxy/fiberglass joint. For a C didge i played in intro of Storytellingstories. Of course the joint wasn’t perfect enough and I still had to use tape. Only this time, only very little.
Third. The screws joint. It was done for the 10 meter didgeridoo for Storytellingstories. It had some rubber for sealing the joint. But it still needed some tape at some places. And the problem was that the joint was breaking under huge mass of 10 meter didgeridoo. So the whole didge had to be supported on many places during and after assembly.
Fourth. The inox joint. The new joint. It seems to work.

To do the model with some sense demanded a certain amount of didgeridoo experience.

But what does it take to make a deep instrument. Let’s do a little maths.
Let’s say (define) deep didgeridoo is the one which has a basic drone about an octave below “normal” didgeridoo and has at least one toot that sounds like a ‘normal’ didgeridoo. First point of deep instruments where I found it reaches some acoustical satisfaction is around 4 meters. The shape of it is around 20cm at the bell. If you look at that instrument, it has about 3 times the length, 2 times the width in both directions. 3×2x2 = 12 times bigger volume than “normal” didge. So you have to take off and dig out 12 times more wood…How does it sound? It sounds like you will not have many of those didges to try.
So what I did at some point, I took my collection of didgeridoos and made almost every possible joint that made even a bit sense. I found only three didges that made sense. But one made especially lots of sense. It is the combination of g/g# didgeridoo (long conical) I often play  in a duo with Marko Ritoša (Kongoh, Rescribi, Ljubičasto), and the fourth wooden part of 10 meter didgeridoo, a big resonator box. I will not go in details now why I like this sound so much, but I will give you an example;
Arhanđeo svega čudnog
Do you understand?

I have thought about it before, but the final impulse was the gig at JT festival, where I could not go by car, and I do not take my “original” didges to planes. The idea was to copy it, but intentionally not perfectly- otherwise I can’t learn enough from it. I had a bit more work that I thought it would be. For example, I decided to do a perfect joint without going to a metal turner. And it took me three days of work. I found out one thing; inox is sort of a HARDISH material. A bit resistant to any physical changes. So I first changed the his mentality, explaining him that he will be a very important “sound holder”- and this, off course,  is why this joint now works.

The sound. Well – it is what i hoped for. Very similar quality. Bit different sound properties. I still have some work to make it proper, and some ideas that I hope that will work that would make it more versatile. I will need a bit of Heaven’s help and it will be done in no-time.

I will present the sound when the tube comes from the workshop as I have no mean to record there properly.

in Didgeridoo - The Instrument, Making didgeridoos