Another Lesson with Jeremy Cloake

I have just had another music lesson with my yidaki teacher, Jeremy Cloake; a really decent sort of individual from New Zealand. He has been playing yidaki for years. He is an impressive player - not just his skills, but his modesty about what he can do, and who he knows. I went back to talk to him to help me improve the growley sounds I make on the inbreath, playing yidaki, so he sat and went through some techniques me designed to start improving diaphram strength and cheak strength. The Yolngu yidaki players work with a lot less backpressure in their yidaki than western players do hense they must learn to work with their diaphrams to provide the kick needed from the sniffing-inbreath. So, over the next few weeks I will be practicing with the view to improving my diaphram and cheaks. I was starting to make the desired sound by the end of the lesson. Imagine a flam sound on a drum kit: two sounds played almost together, but only slightly off and that is the sound I was after.

We discussed Garma and he suggested that rather than going to it (it would be in about a month's time), I wait a few months and he might be able to take me up there himself. If this happened, I would manage to fulfill a dream I have had for some years - to go a meet people up in NEAL. It would be astounding. Cross your fingers, my dear readers, that your humble author gets to go on this trip - the slide show back in the UK would be amazing. I am going to have to work very hard to save the money to go on this trip.