Duduk Fever

Well, i got my Duduk Last week, and it's been a week now, of trying it out...

I love it!

Having noodled abit with Clarinet before, i wasn't foreign to the instrument and how it works... but i was suprised at just how sensitive it is....

I was able to get notes, albet they were totally flat... till i moved the reed tuner back abit... ahh there we go! in tune!

I have an A duduk, master built from the UK, and it's beautiful. Now playing the Duduk requires strong breath and control. I have the breath part fairly okay actually, and was able to get to play some basic scale stuff immediately (which suprised me since i could barely do that on clarinet after weeks and weeks). The hard part is learning to take the breath from the stomach and completely, and controlling that and the playing with it.

Also the embochure for the instrument is easier then clarinet.. and harder at the same time. You can puff your cheeks out (actually you have to with duduk!) and you don't have much of the reed in your mouth. What's tricky is though that you can manipulate the pitch of the reed slightly, so if you're not careful you might be sharp..... although going sharp to correct and vice versa is a common middle eastern sound and works well if you know what you're doing...

I mostly worked on getting the notes to sound "sweet" no air noise and excessive blowing.. and learning to relax and exhale the air evenly to control the dynamics... and to go from soft to loud... and to go from soft to loud and apply Vibrato!.. which is an awesome thing you can do on Duduk..

Even more awesome is the bending of the notes using half holing.. which i am still working on, since you need to blow harder to maintain the volume of the note when half holing, and have to work on the touch of it, to get the notes in tune...

so... with the mouth, reed, breath stuff, finger techniques, and applying the music theory and improvisation stuff i know to this instrument... well... i have my work cut out for me...

I'd love to spend hours practicing on it.. but as a beginner i realise i have to be sensible, because as i noticed yesterday, i need to develop the muscles in my cheeks and around the lips... since they got tired really quick and i could not maintain a proper embochure and my lips and technique went completely wrong...

Main thing is daily practice... and to work on having pieces to play... As tempting as it is to buy dvds and lessons.... I want to figure this thing out on my own... i say on my own but that's not true, watching other musicians on youtube, and the free pdfs on various sites have been extremely useful.... i just want to learn to play my own stuff and when i get better, then work on playing some middle eastern standards... the priorety for me is to use the Duduk in my own music... not to become a traditional musician..

I'm going to write a basic piece and hopefully record it, and when i do i'll post a vid on youtube too....

Till then.

DFZ