I've been out performing this month again and as always I get a question that stumps me every time. "What's your favorite flute?"
I've been asked this question at least a hundred times and it still surprises me. Mostly because I've never sat down and thought about it on my own. "...hmm, what's my favorite flute?" It is a perfectly reasonable question, I guess, but one that I could never answer.
Why not? Well here are a few reasons.
Too Many
I've been playing Native American style flutes for over ten years now and stopped counting how many I had at least nine years ago. As my collection grows I forget about some of the old ones. Newer ones catch my attention and they get played more. It's human nature.
Not All Flutes Sound Alike
Every flute I have sounds slightly different. What I like about the sound of one flute may be great for a certain mood, musical style, or playing style, but not work as well outside of those parameters. I might prefer other flutes for other moods, styles or types of playing.
The sounds of some flutes I own are sweet, some are clear, some are loud, some are soft, some are warm, etc. Many flute have a lot of these qualities, but not all flutes have every good quality one might look for in a flute. I've never heard a flute than can sound both "plains" and "woodland" style. It's one or the other.
This may be why I prefer some flutes over others, they do more of the things I want a flute to do than others. Flutes that can be played soulfully one minute and then aggressively the next I like better than flutes that only play one way.
Too Specific
Some flutes are so specific that they end up limiting themselves. I have drone flutes and doubles that do a few things really well, but not everything. Bass flutes and really high pitched flutes can also fall victim to their specific design. When you get down to it all NAFs are based on one key and that limits them as well. So all flute suffer from being specific in some way.
A World Full Of Options
In the end the main reason why I could never pick a "favorite" flute is that I like to keep my options open. I don't have a favorite color, or a favorite meal, (I do have a favorite food: pumpkin... go figure), I like many different styles of music, a variety of tea blends and types of beer, I like all the seasons (although I think I prefer fall), and as the seasons change and the food at the farmer's market changes I get excited with all the new stuff they offer.
Variety is the spice of life and there are so many wonder things on our planet for us to pick from that I don't see how anyone could ever say "This is my favorite."
So, now that I've thought about it, do I have a favorite flute? Well surprisingly I do...
But it will change tomorrow.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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.
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