Shadows of Sedona / Quiet Journey

A new video set to my song "Quiet Journey" for Anasazi flute, featuring time lapse video of Sedona, AZ.

Buy this song Here

Anasazi Flute Duet Video

Here is a video of me playing both parts of an Anasazi flute duet.



This is is a G Anasazi by Earth Tone Flutes recorded live on March 12, 2010 in Orange County, CA. I recorded the first pass and then looped it back to play a second part against it. This was all done in real time using Digital Performer.

For more information about these flutes check out my articles. To learn how to play one purchase my Complete Guide to the Anasazi Flute

© Cedar Mesa Music. All rights reservered.

Quiet Journey. Song for Anasazi flute

Quiet Journey: Anasazi flute with images of the Grand Canyon by Scott August.

Recorded live July 16th 2008.

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2009 Scott August Signature flute: The Mojave 6

Once Earth Tone flutes had completed the line of the 2008 Scott August Signature Anasazi flutes the big question for me and Geoffrey was "What do we do next?"

The type of flute was the easiest part to answer. I had recently obtained a Mojave flute from Michael Graham Allen and was enthralled with it's exotic sound. It's limited range of notes, however, was some what frustrating. The Mojave replicas that Michael makes has only four holes and could not play any notes above the 5th in any given octave. This is not to say that Michael's flutes are lacking in sound or soul, I just wanted more notes.

So Geoffrey and I decided early on to extend the number of pitches by adding holes. I knew that the next note I heard in the scale was a minor 6th, a half step above the 5th. Above that, to match the top note of a Native American style flute, we picked the minor 7th. The flute is based on the note B.

Coincidentally Geoffrey had been exchanging emails with Frankie Sierra regarding a five hole version of a Mojave flute that he was working on, the fifth hole being a thumb hole. Personally I like to avoid thumb holes if possible so we decided to move the thumb hole to the front of the flute to get the min-6th along with another, higher, finger hole for the min-7th. A total of six holes. This led to the name Mojave-6, or M-6. The spacing of the six holes is in the same style as an Anasazi flute: two groups of three.

Read the complete post

Cahuilla flutes

Several years ago I had the pleasure to visit the Riverside Metropolitan Museum, here in southern California, with Marvin and Jonette Yazzi to look at five Cahuilla/Diegueno/Ipai rim blown flutes they have in their collection. I found out about these flutes from Marvin and Jonette Yazzie and Ernest Siva, an elder of the Cahuilla/Serrano culture.

These flutes are part of the broader western rim-blown flute world which include examples from the Anasazi, Mojave, and southern California cultures.

Like the Anasazi flutes, many of these flutes are made of a elder wood, specifically elderberry. This is a common tree that grows wild in southern California. It blooms with yellow flowers in the spring. The inner core, or pith, of the wood, is soft and can be poked out with a hard stick for flute making. Three of the flutes in the Riverside museum were made of elderberry. The two other flutes were made of river cane. The majority of the flutes we saw that day were thought to have been made during the turn of the 20th century. All had four finger holes.

We took some photos and measurements of the flutes but were not able play them as they had been treated with a preservative that was toxic. I think it was formaldehyde. They also had to be handled with white gloves for this reason.

Measuring about 21" in length with a 3/4" bore, the elderberry flutes' finger holes were evenly spaced in the middle of the flute. No information was known about the tuning or the traditional use of these instruments, although Ernest recalled that elders played this flute when he was a youngster growing up on the Morongo reservation in the San Gorgonio pass. The flutes in the Riverside museum were found in the Diegno/Ipai

The cane flutes were about 17" in length with the top finger hole being about 8 1/2" from the blown end, also known as the proximal end. From there three more finger holes descended toward the distal end.

The flutes all had some decorative markings. Hatch marks radiating from finger holes like sun rays and bands of triangles and wavy lines that were possibly burned on to the flutes.

Several weeks later the Yazzies made a few reproductions of the elderberry flutes. (Fig 1-A below) The pitch classification of the notes does not correspond to any western tuning and seemed to be random. Due to this lack of any tonal focus I never really put much effort to playing these flutes. That was a couple years ago.

About a month ago I dropped by the Yazzies and while there Jonette brought out some flutes that were based on the cane Cahuilla flutes with the finger holes grouped toward the distal end of the flute. When I played these there was a stronger tonal center than the elder berry ones. These were fun to play. (Fig-1 B-E)


Figure 1

One of the better "tuned" ones was based on the note G (above middle C). The tones produced by a straight uncovering of the holes from the bottom up produce the notes G-B-C#-D-E with an overblown octave G. A cross fingering pattern will produce the notes G-B-C-D-E-(G 8va) (Fig 1-D)

Two of the flutes were based on E-G#-A-B-C with an overblown octave E. These flutes tends to wander a bit more between half steps depending on the players embouchure. (Fig 1-B/C)

The Yazzies also made a six hole version, but not based on any of the artifacts we saw. The pitches found in this flute are F-Ab-A-B-C-Db-Eb with an over blown note of E, a major seventh above the root. (Or a half step below the octave.) By not playing some of the notes I was able to come up with some scales, but nothing like the Anasazi, Mojave or NAF scales. (Fig 1-E)

These flutes have a very soft, intimate sound. What I would call sweet. They are not at all loud. Here is an example of flute D from Figure 1.



The Yazzies are making these flutes with their "grand father" tuning. I thought it would be fun to take some of them with me to the Zion Flute School (more on that in a later post) and before I even got them handed out they were spoken for. Luckily, I had one already.

You won't find these flutes on their website, but if you contact them they can fill you in on the details.

© 2009 Cedar Mesa Music. All rights reserved.

Mojave Flute Improv

From a recent concert. Will Clipman sat in with me, adding some live percussion to my set.

Mojave Flute

During last July's INAFA convention Michael Graham Allen played what he called a Mojave Flute. It had a sound very similar to an Anasazi flute but the scale was quite different. Michael didn't have any to sell at that time but I put in an order and got my flute a few months later.

Surprisingly I didn't mention to very many people that I had one but lately the largest number of emails I've gotten with flute questions have been about this flute. So instead of responding to each one, one at a time I thought I'd post a short article about them here.

These flutes are shorter than Anasazi flute being 24-3/4" long with a proximal (the playing end) bore width of 7/8". They also only have four holes instead of six.



The "notch" on the mouthpiece is smaller, or less pronounced, than on a Anasazi flute. However given the shorter length they are a little easier to play than their bigger cousins.

Read the full post here

Anasazi Signature flute prototype tests

As many of you know Geoffrey Ellis and I went through many different prototypes to get the instrument we were looking for. When playing over the phone didn't cut it I made a video clip with my digital still camera. I placed it on a bookshelf to get the mouthpiece in view. Then I emailed it to Geoffrey.



The "ticking" on the soundtrack is the camera's auto focus. Other than that, this is a completely dry take. No reverb or delay.

Scott August Signature Anasazi flutes

Cedar Mesa Music and Scott August are proud to announce the Scott August Signature Anasazi Flute. These professional quality instruments are made by Geoffrey Ellis of Earth Tone Flutes and are perfect for both beginning and advanced players. Ideal for concert stage, recording studios or just nooding around alone as you discover your true Kokopelli.

Scott and Geoffrey worked closely together to construct a flute that had the distinctive warm, low sound that Scott strives for in his recordings while still keeping ease of playing in mind. Several prototypes were constructed and extensively tested. The final designs were then field tested by members of Scott's beginning Anasazi flute class before Scott and Geoffrey made their final decision. The result is a warm, resonant low tone with a silky smooth response.

To satisfy both the collector and the everyday flute player these flutes will be available in two lines

The Scott August Signature Ansaszi Flute
and
The Scott August Anasazi Flute Series


The Scott August Signature Ansaszi Flute
Shown above, this is a limited edition flute. Only twenty five flutes will be offered per year, each year will it's own distinct design. Made of eastern red cedar The Scott August Signature Anasazi Flute is tastefully accented with a crushed turquoise Cedar Mesa Music logo and Bore Rings in a style reminiscent of Chaco Canyon jewelry. Each flute will be signed by Scott August, Numbered and come with a Certificate of Authenticity, a bag and maintenance kit.

Available in the keys of Ab and A these flutes will be made to order to accommodate both right and left handed players. See below for prices and availability.

The Scott August Anasazi Flute Series

Also made of eastern red cedar the Scott August Anasazi Flute Series is a more affordable version of the Signature flute accented with a wood burned Cedar Mesa Music logo and Bore Rings. Each flute will come with a bag and a flute maintenance kit.

Available in the keys of Ab and A, with other keys to be anounced, these flutes will be made to order to accommodate both right and left handed players. See below for prices and availability.



The Scott August Ansaszi Flute Series

Prices and Availability
These flutes will be available starting April 21th, 2008

The Scott August Signature Ansaszi Flute:
Price: $350.00 One of 25 Signed and numbered flutes. Keys available: Ab and A
Comes with a certificate of authenticity, a bag and maintenance kit

The Scott August Anasazi Flute Series
Price: $235.00. Keys available: Ab and A. Other keys to be anounced.
Comes with a bag and maintenance kit

How to order
To order your flute send the following information to Cedar Mesa Music

• Name
  
• Address
  
• City, State, Zip
  
• Phone
  
• Email
  
• Which Key?
  Tell us which hand you place on the bottom holes –right or left?
  We don’t need a deposit

Once we get this information you’ll be put on the list. It’s “first come first flute...”


© Cedar Mesa Music

Anasazi flute class review

I know the posts have been a little light lately, but I'm hoping to start posting more frequently. To start off I thought I'd show some photos from the Anasazi flute class I gave earlier this month for the Inland Empire Flute Circle. All the photos were taken by Barbara Garliner, the IEFC's de facto official photographer.

The class met in the future home of the Dorthy Ramon Learning Center, a non profit group that is dedicated to saving and sharing all Southern California’s American Indian cultures, languages, history, music, and other traditional arts.


The class was made up of about eight very brave people as the Anasazi flute takes a strong will to learn to play for most people. We've looked at this flute in great detail in earlier posts so I won't go into that here.


Everyone had to get a flute for the class and some did not have them very long before class day. A few chose to maker their own. A double challenge.


The first thing we did was to talk about the embouchure, or lip position that the player needs to learn to play the flute. Unlike the NAF the vast majority of people can't just pick up an Anasazi flute and get a tone right away. It can take days, weeks, even months of practice and the embouchure is extremely important.


Each member of the class got to try it out for themselves and I was able to tailor my comments to every one's individual needs.


In addition to the homemade PVC Anasazi flute we had a professional maker of Native American style flutes, Rich Halliburton of Querencia Woodwinds. Rich and I are good friends but I don't know what other "woodwinds" he makes besides flutes. His NAF's however are very nice and one of his flutes won top prize at last years Oklahoma Flute Festival. John Stillwell was also at the circle meeting as was Steve Meier a budding flute maker who was there to debut some of his flutes.


Here is a photo of Michelle. She is in the military and if I remember correctly was a captain in the navy. Not many women can play the Anasazi flute due to the long length of the bore. In the photo she is playing an Ab (G#) and if she was smaller and could not reach the finger holes of this key she could try one in the key of A. I know of a maker that is planing to make some Anasazi flutes in Bb so that more women can play them. Coincidentally, I've been doing some digging lately into the original Anasazi flutes that were found by Earl Morris in "Broken Flute Cave" and it turns out that they are reported to have been in the key of Bb so these shorter flutes will still be authentic to the prehistoric ones.


Here's a photo of Ernest Siva giving the Anasazi flute a try. Ernest is a elder of the Morrongo tribe and grew up on the Morongo Indian Reservation located in the San Gorgonio pass. The culture of this area had flutes very similar to the Anasazi flute but shorter and with a narrower bore and only four holes. Several of these are in a museum in Riverside and Marvin and Jonette Yazzie of Yazzie Flutes have made recreations of them. They are really hard to play and the pitch class of the scale is still a mystery.


Speaking of Jonette Yazzie, here is a photo of her playing an Anasazi flute. Her playing position is not the best but as she is not that tall she found that holding the flute a little to the side was the only way she could reach the bottom finger holes. Like Michelle (shown above), Jonette is playing an Ab.


We also looked at a recreation of a Hopi flute that was in use as recently as 120 years ago. These flutes continued to be used after the Anasazi flute apparently fell out of use about A.D. 1250, which coincides with the great migration out of the four corners area and, some believe, the appearance of the kachina cult.


At the end of class I showed everyone some prototypes of some Anasazi flutes by a maker new to these instruments. I handed them out to the class to get some feedback on how they played for beginners. We'll look at these Anasazi flute in greater depth in a later article.

If you're interested in trying to learn to play one of these flutes I'm giving a class in Northern California on April 26 as part of the Northern California Flute Circle Spring Gathering Festival. To find out more here.

Anasazi flute class

I am offering a class on how to play the Anasazi flute on Saturday, March 8th, 2008.

The class will cover:

Introduction to the Anasazi flute
How to hold the flute
Lip position and placement "Embrosure"
Getting your first notes
Perfecting your tone
Exploring the scales
Breath control
How to practice

For complete details visit the class page on my website.

Hope to see you there,
Scott August

The Extended Scale of the Anasazi Flute

In our last two articles about the Anasazi flute we looked at the basic major pentatonic and then the minor pentatonic scales respectively. If you'll recall we also discovered that the major pentatonic is Anhemitonic pentatonic scale, so called because the scale doesn't have any half steps, like the Native American flute scale, and that the minor scale is Hemitonic pentatonic scale because it has some half steps. To review this check out the last article: The Minor Scale of the Anasazi flute.

In this section we're going to look at the Extended scale found in the Anasazi flute's lower octave. By extended I mean all the playable notes. This scale has nine notes that are determined by the physical construction of the Anasazi flute itself. It is not presented here as a scale that you would find practical to play or even pleasing to listen to, but rather as a reference of all the notes available in the lower octave of the Anasazi flute; how they are fingered and their intervalic relationship to the root note.

THE EXTENDED SCALE OF THE ANASAZI FLUTE

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

© Cedar Mesa Music

The Minor Scale of the Anasazi Flute

In our last look at the Anasazi flute we saw that the Anasazi flute, like the Native American flute, has a basic pentatonic scale. The NAF basic scale is a minor pentatonic while the Anasazi flute's basic scale is a major pentatonic. However the Anasazi flute has several other scales that can be easily played by just changing a few fingerings. One of these is a minor pentatonic. However the Anasazi flute's minor pentatonic is slighty modified from the Native American flute's minor pentatonic.

A PENTATONIC REVIEW
Before we can understand why the minor scale of the Anasazi flute is modified we need to understand a little more about common pentatonic scales. The most common pentatonic scale is called a Anhemitonic pentatonic scale by ethnomusicologists because it has no half-steps. The so called NAF pentatonic minor scale is a Anhemitonic pentatonic scale. You can easily play a Anhemitonic pentatonic scale using only the black keys of a piano.

WHAT IS A HALF STEP? Musical systems are broken down by the smallest distance between tones. In the case of the Western European scales that we use most often in our culture (so called Western Culture) the smallest distance is the Half Step. Half steps are very easy to play on a piano. Any two notes that are next to each other are a half step apart. The easiest to play is to go from a white key to a black key that lies next to it. Another is to play two white keys that are directly next to one another. (There are two of these on a piano.) In the example below all the notes in red are some of the half steps you can find on a piano. There are no half steps between any of the black keys on a piano. That's why its so easy to play a Anhemitonic pentatonic scale on the the black keys. It's built in.

Let's listen again to the basic scales of the Native American flute and the Anasazi flute, both starting on F#.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

© Cedar Mesa Music

The Basic Anasazi Flute Scale

The Anasazi flute, currently recreated by Michael Graham Allen, is starting to gain popularity among players of the modern "plains" style Native American flute. It's haunting tone and ability to maneuver through the overtones of the harmonic series creates a very seductive sound. Since more people are becoming interested in them let's take a closer look at how the basic scale is set up on this flute and how it differs from the modern NAF.


First here is a quick look at how a Anasazi flute is held. As you can see the lower half of the mouthpiece end of the flute is set in the middle of the jaw. The player blows across the top part of the rim with the flute held at a 45˚ angle. We'll take a closer look at this later. For now let's take a look at the basic scale.

A DIFFERENT PENTATONICS SCALE
The Anasazi flute, like the modern Native American flute, has a pentatonic scale as it's basic scale. However, it's not the NAF's minor version of the pentatonic but the major version. A pentatonic scale has five notes (from the Greek pente: five) plus the octave.

Let's listen to examples of both these scales starting on F#.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE


© Cedar Mesa Music

NAF Part 5 Ancestral Puebloan, "Anasazi" flute

THE ANASAZI FLUTE
In this posting we're going to look at a completely different type of Native American flute. The Ancestral Pueblo or "Anasazi" flute, which is currently being reproduced by Michael Graham Allen aka Coyote Oldman. He is making these from measurements of artifacts that were provided by Dr. Richard Payne, an avid collector, historian and author. Unlike all the other Native American flutes (NAF) we've looked at so far, this flute pre dates any European influence. In this sense it is a true Native American flute, but as we shall see below, it shares many characteristic with flutes throughout the world.

Examples of this flute can be heard on Scott August's latest release "Lost Canyons" available from Cedar Mesa Music.
An Echoes radio "CD of the Month" this release features three pieces for solo Anasazi flute and three pieces for Anasazi flute and world instruments.

AN END-BLOWN FLUTE
The major difference between the Anasazi flute and the modern (1800-present day) Native America flute is how the sound is produced. The Anasazi flute is not a fipple flute, like the modern NAF, but is an end-blown, or rim-blown, flute. End-blown flutes are some of the oldest flutes in the world. One of the oldest is the Ney from the Middle East, which dates back to the time of the Pyramids. In Turkey there are the Nai and the Kaval. The most well-know end-blown flute is the Japanese shakuhachi. In the Western Hemisphere an end-blown flute called the Quena can be found along side Pan-Pipes (Zampoñas) in South American, while in North America the Hopi culture has an end-blown flute that is still used for ceremonies, and the Southern California native cultures also have a end-blown flute made of Elderberry, but it is no longer in common use.

PLAYING TECHNIQUE
Unlike a modern NAF, the player has to learn how to place their lips against the mouth piece to produce a sound. It can take an hour to a week for the beginner to produce their first note! I was lucky, getting notes within the first hour, but even now, four months later, there are times when I have difficulty making a sound.


The flute is a hollow tube. The mouth piece is a slight depression on the top side of the tube. The player covers most of the lower part of the tube with their lower lip and chin while blowing a stream of air across the depression. If the stream air doesn't hit the flute just right no sound, or high squeaking overtone results.


THE "ANASAZI" SCALE
This flute is 30" long and has a bore of 3/4" at the far end. It is made of cedar. The root note is G# and has a scale that is surprisingly close to the modern NAF scale in that it is pentatonic. But the mode is differetnt. This scale is a major pentatonic scale with the addition of a minor 3rd. The pitches are G#, A#, B, C, D#, F, then the Octave. Notes above, and including the Octave that can be played by over-blowing are: G#, A#, B, C and even D# and a higher G# -two octaves above the root. With alternate fingerings a player can get some chromatic pitches, such as G (half step below the octave), F#, and E. As you can see in the photo above the finger holes are much different than the modern NAF, being closer to the bottom of the pipe and there is a larger gap between each set of three holes than on the NAF.

Listen to a Sample of this flute.

HISTORY

This type of flute dates back to AD 500. During this time the cultures of the Four Corner area of North America were called Basketmakers. Pottery was just beginning to be made, but weaving was the at it's height during this time. This was before the cliff dwelling of Mesa Verde, and the giant pueblos of Chaco Canyon. People lived in Pit-houses, a semi-subterranean "earth-lodge" with an earth covered log roof. This was also the high point of Rock Art creativity, especially so of Kokopelli. This flute is Kokopelli's flute.

In 1931 Earl Morris, who reconstructed the great Kiva at Aztec, NM, was excavating in the Prayer Rock district of northern Arizona, near Canyon de Chelly, when he unearthed four flutes in a cave he later named Broken Flute Cave. These flutes were made of Box Elder which has a soft inner pith that can easily be removed. (End-blown flutes from southern California were made of Elderberry which also has a soft inner pith.)

Morris also found similar flutes in Mummy Cave in Canyon del Muerto, part of Canyon de Chelly in 1934. These include ones with only five holes. These five hole flutes match Hopi flutes from the 1900's. A living history that stretches back 1,500 years! These flutes are reported to be in the collection a the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Morris describes the Mummy Cave find In a National Geographic Magazine article. He describes that the flutes found were buried with "The body...of an old man, surely once a priest or chief. Beside the usual offerings of beads, baskets, and sandals, there lay above his buckskin wrapping a flute, one end beneath the chin, the other between the thighs. ...

Along the left side was a mass of wooden objects, all readily perishable, hence extremely rare in perfect condition. Conspicuous among them were bone-tipped flint flakers with which knives and projectile points were made, several spears, four handsomely wrought spear throwers, and three more flutes."

Note: In my research on these flutes, especially as regards Morris' finds there are some discrepancies with dates that I have yet to sort out.

HEAR MORE
To hear more of the Anasazi flute sign up for my quarterly free mp3 downloads, through my free E-mailing list.

References:
Campbell, Grant, Canyon de Chelly: It's people and rock art, 1978, University of Arizona, Tucson.

Clint Goss, 2005, www.flutekey.com/brokenflutecave.

Robert Gatliff: 2005, Personal Correspondence.



© Cedar Mesa Music