Friday, October 02, 2009
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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Friday, August 21, 2009
Performance at the 2009 Yosemite Flute Festival
I will be performing at this years Yosemite Flute Festival on Friday Sept 25th! I will also be giving workshops and private lessons during the festival which is from the 25th to the 27th. Hope to see you there. Pass this on...
Thursday, June 04, 2009
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.
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Thursday, May 28, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Potomac Festival Notes
Last week I performed at the Potomac flute festival. This was my first time performing on the east coast and it was a great experience. The week before I had flown into Raleigh, NC to do a workshop and performance for the Neuse River flute circle. I met some great people there, many of whom I now consider friends.
RALEIGH, NC
From the time I landed on Friday night right up till the following Monday morning I was on the go. Workshop Saturday afternoon, then rushing over to the small hall to set up, then perform, a late dinner, up early the next day to give some lessons...
The workshop was on Intermediate/Advanced NAF playing and the level of the attendees, as with all workshops, varied greatly. There were some very good players and some very good flute makers.
Here are a couple photos from that workshop.
In this one I'm showing how much weight my flute case can case support..
Apparently I also demonstrated how to palm a basketball...
Setting up for the performance I encountered a lot of issues that I don't normally have. The internal routing of my signal path got screwed up some how and it took a while to work through that. Then my small MIDI keyboard was not recognized by my gear. Never did figure out what happened there.
Regardless, once I took the stage I put all this out of my mind and focused on the performance. Without the keyboard I was forced to rearrange my set on the fly, but as I tend to not use a fixed "set" anyway this wasn't a problem.
Performing in Raleigh, NC
THE PIT
After the performance a bunch of us went to The Pit for Carolina style BBQ. The master chef there is Ed Mitchell who is considered by many to be the premier chef of this style of cooking.
Drinking a toast of Junior Johnson's Midnight Moon moonshine with Ed Mitchell.
POTOMAC
At Potomac the set up was flawless. Earlier that day I did a mock set up to find out where things had gone wrong in Raleigh and everything work exactly the way it was intended all along. The signal routing worked fine and the keyboard came online without a hitch. I always try to learn something from any problems and although I never did figure out quite what happened in Raleigh, I did learn more about how my internal routing worked and saved presets for several different configurations to use in the future.
During the performance I tried to played an equal percentage of Anasazi flutes to regular NAFs and debuted several new pieces.
The next day consisted of multiple lessons and an Anasazi workshop. The latter was interesting as everyone was at a different level of ability. Some were well along the Anasazi road, while others had just got their flute that day. A few just showed up to see what all the fuss was about. That made the workshop a challenge. Which level do you gear the class to? I tried to get a little bit of information for every level.
FLUTE ENVY
In between all this I manged to buy flutes from Butch Hall and Colyn Peterson. I also got a flute from Leonard McGann tuned to a major scale and played a cool double by Brent Haines.
Here is the flute I purchased from Colyn and Kitty of Woodland Voices
It's made of Port Orford cedar with Katalox and is in the key of G# (minor pentatonic).
I saw this flute with it's crow/raven design and all weekend keep going back to it. Being at the table next to Colyn and Kitty didn't help. (Big shout out of thanks to Kitty for all her help at my table while I was away giving lessons or my workshop.) At one point Jeff Ball came by and asked me to do an improv that he could film for the portal and this is the flute I picked up. Finally by Sunday morning I knew I had to have it and in fact have ordered a bass version of it.
I also got to try out a prototype of Butch Hall's Anasazi flute. He is trying to base his on the original artifacts that were dug up and so they have a much smaller bore and no notch on the proximal end. They have a very gentle, intimate sound and I asked Butch to put me on the short list for getting one. (So Butch, if you're reading this, don't forget me!)
STAGE SET UP
Judging by the amount of questions I got about my stage set up I'll take a moment to go over it here. I use an Apple MacBook Pro running MOTU's Digital Performer and Reason by Propellerheads . The audio interface is a MOTU Traveler which handles all of my audio routing, including audio from the computer via FireWire.
The mic was plugged into this device and that signal was then routed to a TC Electronics Nova Delay for added delay. The output of the Nova Delay is returned to the Traveler. Then the mic/delay signal is bussed to an output to the hall's main mixing board as a stereo pair, while my "minus" tracks are bussed to another output to the board. Again a stereo pair. This allows the person running the main sound mixer to blend my tracks, which frees me up from having to do any on the fly mixing. This is a luxury, normally I have to do this myself, while on stage, performing.
The keyboard was an old M-Audio Oxygen 8. Normally I use an Axiom 25, also made by M-Audio, but it was bigger than the box that I used to ship stuff back east. This was part of the issue that I encountered in Raleigh when the keyboard wouldn't work. The Oxygen 8 is so old that my USB drivers don't recognize it and I have to go through a MIDI interface. A real pain... The newer versions of all of these keyboards work just fine with a USB cable. The are class compliant
For my performances in both Maryland and North Carolina I played flutes by J.P. Gomez, (2 flutes) Geoffrey Ellis, and Pat Haran, (a double drone flute). As back up for watered out flutes, I carried one each by Geoffrey Ellis and Scott Loomis. For Anasazi I played flutes by Geoffrey Ellis and Michael Graham Allen. Lastly I also played a Michael Graham Allen Mojave flute.
ODDS AND ENDS
This was a really well run festival. From my perspective things went very smoothly. The Saturday afternoon concert did go a little long and forced my Anasazi workshop to start a little later, but everyone was fine with that. There were great performances from Mark Holland and Jeff Ball, and I got to finally meet Geri LittleJohn! On Sunday night I hung out with Jeff, Margo Boone, Brent Haines and his wife, Leonard McGann and others. I also met Jeff's new family dog "Hershey" and just had a nice relaxing time.
The only down side of the trip was that my sinuses were messed up the whole time I was on the east coast. I only mention this because when I told Jeff about the trouble I was having he answered, with one of the funniest things I heard while there, "Welcome to Maryland. If you don't already have allergies, you'll get them here!"
The flight home was long, going through Chicago, but from there we flew right over the Grand Canyon.
Out my window seat I could clearly see and make out the buildings on the south rim. The red deserts a stark contrast to the rich greens of North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.
Back home in the deserts of LA my sinus problems are behind me, but I brought back new friends, long lasting memories and the hope I can return soon.
RALEIGH, NC
From the time I landed on Friday night right up till the following Monday morning I was on the go. Workshop Saturday afternoon, then rushing over to the small hall to set up, then perform, a late dinner, up early the next day to give some lessons...
The workshop was on Intermediate/Advanced NAF playing and the level of the attendees, as with all workshops, varied greatly. There were some very good players and some very good flute makers.
Here are a couple photos from that workshop.
In this one I'm showing how much weight my flute case can case support..
Apparently I also demonstrated how to palm a basketball...
Setting up for the performance I encountered a lot of issues that I don't normally have. The internal routing of my signal path got screwed up some how and it took a while to work through that. Then my small MIDI keyboard was not recognized by my gear. Never did figure out what happened there.
Regardless, once I took the stage I put all this out of my mind and focused on the performance. Without the keyboard I was forced to rearrange my set on the fly, but as I tend to not use a fixed "set" anyway this wasn't a problem.
Performing in Raleigh, NC
THE PIT
After the performance a bunch of us went to The Pit for Carolina style BBQ. The master chef there is Ed Mitchell who is considered by many to be the premier chef of this style of cooking.
Drinking a toast of Junior Johnson's Midnight Moon moonshine with Ed Mitchell.
POTOMAC
At Potomac the set up was flawless. Earlier that day I did a mock set up to find out where things had gone wrong in Raleigh and everything work exactly the way it was intended all along. The signal routing worked fine and the keyboard came online without a hitch. I always try to learn something from any problems and although I never did figure out quite what happened in Raleigh, I did learn more about how my internal routing worked and saved presets for several different configurations to use in the future.
During the performance I tried to played an equal percentage of Anasazi flutes to regular NAFs and debuted several new pieces.
The next day consisted of multiple lessons and an Anasazi workshop. The latter was interesting as everyone was at a different level of ability. Some were well along the Anasazi road, while others had just got their flute that day. A few just showed up to see what all the fuss was about. That made the workshop a challenge. Which level do you gear the class to? I tried to get a little bit of information for every level.
FLUTE ENVY
In between all this I manged to buy flutes from Butch Hall and Colyn Peterson. I also got a flute from Leonard McGann tuned to a major scale and played a cool double by Brent Haines.
Here is the flute I purchased from Colyn and Kitty of Woodland Voices
It's made of Port Orford cedar with Katalox and is in the key of G# (minor pentatonic).
I saw this flute with it's crow/raven design and all weekend keep going back to it. Being at the table next to Colyn and Kitty didn't help. (Big shout out of thanks to Kitty for all her help at my table while I was away giving lessons or my workshop.) At one point Jeff Ball came by and asked me to do an improv that he could film for the portal and this is the flute I picked up. Finally by Sunday morning I knew I had to have it and in fact have ordered a bass version of it.
I also got to try out a prototype of Butch Hall's Anasazi flute. He is trying to base his on the original artifacts that were dug up and so they have a much smaller bore and no notch on the proximal end. They have a very gentle, intimate sound and I asked Butch to put me on the short list for getting one. (So Butch, if you're reading this, don't forget me!)
STAGE SET UP
Judging by the amount of questions I got about my stage set up I'll take a moment to go over it here. I use an Apple MacBook Pro running MOTU's Digital Performer and Reason by Propellerheads . The audio interface is a MOTU Traveler which handles all of my audio routing, including audio from the computer via FireWire.
The mic was plugged into this device and that signal was then routed to a TC Electronics Nova Delay for added delay. The output of the Nova Delay is returned to the Traveler. Then the mic/delay signal is bussed to an output to the hall's main mixing board as a stereo pair, while my "minus" tracks are bussed to another output to the board. Again a stereo pair. This allows the person running the main sound mixer to blend my tracks, which frees me up from having to do any on the fly mixing. This is a luxury, normally I have to do this myself, while on stage, performing.
The keyboard was an old M-Audio Oxygen 8. Normally I use an Axiom 25, also made by M-Audio, but it was bigger than the box that I used to ship stuff back east. This was part of the issue that I encountered in Raleigh when the keyboard wouldn't work. The Oxygen 8 is so old that my USB drivers don't recognize it and I have to go through a MIDI interface. A real pain... The newer versions of all of these keyboards work just fine with a USB cable. The are class compliant
For my performances in both Maryland and North Carolina I played flutes by J.P. Gomez, (2 flutes) Geoffrey Ellis, and Pat Haran, (a double drone flute). As back up for watered out flutes, I carried one each by Geoffrey Ellis and Scott Loomis. For Anasazi I played flutes by Geoffrey Ellis and Michael Graham Allen. Lastly I also played a Michael Graham Allen Mojave flute.
ODDS AND ENDS
This was a really well run festival. From my perspective things went very smoothly. The Saturday afternoon concert did go a little long and forced my Anasazi workshop to start a little later, but everyone was fine with that. There were great performances from Mark Holland and Jeff Ball, and I got to finally meet Geri LittleJohn! On Sunday night I hung out with Jeff, Margo Boone, Brent Haines and his wife, Leonard McGann and others. I also met Jeff's new family dog "Hershey" and just had a nice relaxing time.
The only down side of the trip was that my sinuses were messed up the whole time I was on the east coast. I only mention this because when I told Jeff about the trouble I was having he answered, with one of the funniest things I heard while there, "Welcome to Maryland. If you don't already have allergies, you'll get them here!"
The flight home was long, going through Chicago, but from there we flew right over the Grand Canyon.
Out my window seat I could clearly see and make out the buildings on the south rim. The red deserts a stark contrast to the rich greens of North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.
Back home in the deserts of LA my sinus problems are behind me, but I brought back new friends, long lasting memories and the hope I can return soon.
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