Start by making a few practice blows: Without the instrument, relax your jaw, loosen your lips, and blow, flapping your lips like a horse showing disapproval. Increase the pressure and tighten your lips until you’ve got an even-pitched fart noise or motorboat (this bilabial trill is pretty similar to a Bronx cheer or blowing a raspberry); it might help to pooch out your lower jaw a touch, so that your teeth are even (your lowers might even creep a little in front of your uppers). Once you are done laughing at yourself, press your lips firmly to your didgeridoo mouthpiece and repeat; you’ll note that, as you vary the tension in your lips—even just slightly—you’ll shift the didgeridoo’s pitch. Your first goal is to sustain an even pitch, and you’ll probably be able to do so after maybe 20 minutes of monkeying around. The next step is to shift to playing using the side of your mouth (thus taking advantage of the thinner edge of your lips, which you can articulate more finely). Shift your mouth so that one of the fleshy lobes of your lips is centered in the mouthpiece, and repeat your motorboat noises. You’ll immediately notice that the signature didgeridoo overtones are clearer.

Other basic didgeridoo techniques include puffing and tightening your cheeks, working your cheeks and jaws as though you have a mouthful of water, and popping your tongue (try saying fast “ta-ta-ta-ta-ta”s or slow “da da da da da”s; harmonica players rely on similar tongue articulations). As you get the hang of these, experiment with growling and chattering in your throat as you play.

The gold standard of didge playing is circular breathing, which makes it possible to extend a note. This technique is common among many aerophone (brass and woodwind) players—Kenny G holds the record for sustaining a single, uninterrupted note: roughly 45 minutes. The jazz sax madman Rahsaan Roland Kirk is rumored to have once carried a single note for almost three hours during a live performance in the ’70s. In order to circular breathe, fully extend your cheeks as you play, and then use them like a bagpipe bellows to keep air moving through your lips while you sip a little air in through your nose to replenish your lung supply. A good way to practice this technique it is to start out trying to circular breathe through the narrowest cocktail straw you can find. Work your way up to normal straws, and finally a large-bore milkshake straw. Don’t get discouraged: Even taking these baby steps, it’ll take a few months of didge playing—working those cheeks and making funny noises—to build up the strength to start getting a usable circular breath.

Apart from being an interesting aesthetic addition to your hippie-jam or avant-garde electronica repertoire, didgeridoo playing is also a very soothing meditative practice (at least for the player; mates and roommates tend to disagree) and a viable treatment for snoring and sleep apnea.