The drone is the basic sound of the didjeridu, and it is important to keep that going while the other effects are produced. As you can only breathe out for a certain length of time, some way of replenishing the air reservoir in your lungs needs to be learnt. This process is called circular breathing. Learning how to circular breath can seem very difficult at first, but that is mostly because your brain has to learn a slightly different way of breathing. The following steps should allow you to develop the technique, but as always, there is no substitute for practice. Some lucky people can do it very quickly but most take several weeks of practice to get basic circular breathing right.

Step 1.
Practice breathing in through your nose then blowing out through your mouth, gradually making the blow longer and the breath in a quick snatch or sniff of air.

Step 2.
Fill your mouth full of air and push the air out of your mouth with your cheeks without using your lungs at all. This may be easier in the beginning if you fill your mouth full of water and squeeze it out in a stream between your lips. The important part of this is getting used to pushing air out of your mouth without using your lungs.

Step 3.
As in step 2, but snatch or sniff some air in to your lungs at the same time. You will, of course, find that your lungs will fill up with air, so blow some out through your mouth in between your sniffs.

The cycle of events for circular breathing is as follows:-

• Blow through your mouth until some of the air, but not all, has been used.
  
• Allow your mouth to fill with air.
  
• Use your tongue to change to pushing air out of your mouth with your cheeks
• whilst snatching air into your lungs through your nose.
  
• Change back to blowing air from your lungs.

You may find that a glass of water and a drinking straw useful. Your aim is to blow a steady stream of bubbles through the water. This is a useful aid because it provides a reasonable amount of resistance to your air flow, similar to when making the drone through the didjeridu.

I have also found an old biro tube with the end slightly squeezed in so there is a little resistance to blowing air through quite useful, as you can practice almost anywhere with it.

Once you are beginning to master the circular breathing then you need to transfer the technique to the didjeridu. First you take a reasonably deep breath and start blowing your fundamental drone. You should start to circular breath well before you are running out of air otherwise this will be too late. It is usually better to take quick snatches of air at regular intervals rather than try and take longer ones less frequently. Once again, this will take much practice. You should strive to get an even drone with as little as possible change when breathing in.

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