I am Healing - Native American Flute

I am Healing - Flute and music made by Therese Lowdin.

So I've had a bit of a break from Blogging. But I've continued to make flutes.

I got a question a while ago if I could make a smaller flute, -that a young/smaller person could play.
The same day I went home and made a small flute. It ended up being a 30 cm long flute with 5 holes. It's tuned in minor pentatonic and has a beautiful high tone. I'm really happy with it and my two boys loves to play it too.

Then I had a thought about making a flute with diatonic tuning. (Major tuning) Whenever I make a flute, I want to use it for a specific purpose. I really LOVE the wooden sound that my flutes makes and with a diatonic flute, I can play a wider range of music.  (I'm planning to make a CD soon with all my new flutes)

I found out after a few days of research that it's really hard to get the holes in right place. I had some idea where to put the holes, but it is VERY different from a minor pentatonic scale.
It's the bore size, plus the thickness of the walls etc that determines were they should go. So with my mind set up that I could stuff it up, I began to drill the holes. VOILA. I did it! Holes done and are in the right place.

Now the tuning. Apparently you have to make an increase to the bore a 1/4 up the bore.(from the end) Otherwise the second octave becomes sharp. Well. I didn't. So the top octave on my beautiful  E major flute is VERY sharp. Well. I guess it wasn't too bad for my first attempt. Next one WILL be perfect where all the octaves are in tune. ;-)

Next flute I'm making is an ancient Indian tuning. I'm SO excited! Wish me luck.

New flute

I just made an attemt to go outside and begin to make another flute. But after only 2 minutes, I gave up. It must have been over 50 degrees C out in the backroom, where my workstation is located. Way TOOOO hot. I don't feel like being cooked like a little prawn. But I thought I make another attemt tonight.

But I managed to take a photo of my E minor flute. It is in Cedar wood and has a gorgeous deep tone. All my flutes are tuned in A 440, which is a standard here in Australia. (Back home in Sweden you tune your instruments to A442 or A443.)

The flute has my newest carving. My wave carving. This is made out of the jarrah wood I mentioned in my last post. It still needs a few coats of varnish.

Turtle Carving

Well. My first attempt to carve a turtle for my Fetish. I made it in Western Red cedar. BUT - I discovered that Cedar wood is way too soft to make carvings. The wood splits when you try to carve in it with small chisels. Not a fun experience after a days work. So I was back to square one.

I looked around the shed for some other wood and lucky for me I found an old wood piece. (which fell on one of my sons head the other day- poor little one!) This wood was hard - I think it is Jarrah. It's amazing! So no more soft wood carvings for me!

Should I build a 5 or 6 hole flute?

In the early stages of my flute making the placements of the finger holes made me really confused. Should the flute have 5 or 6 holes - where are they supposed to placed on the flute? I had no idea and I looked everywhere to find some good info.

When you start to make a flute I would recommend to begin with 5 holes. Just because the NAF (Native American Flute) is played with a scale called -pentatonic scale, which is based on 5 notes (see the black keys on a piano) The flutes are always played in a minor key.

Example on a pentatonic scale is:

Am would be - A,C,D,E,G,(A2).

A really good site for 5 hole fingering placement is:


http://walkingridge.net/native-american-flute-hole-placement-tool-gui/

Here you just measure the bore of your flute and put in your measurements and- voila. You have the exact placements for your 5  holes.

When you have made a few flutes with 5 holes you can begin to explore the 6 hole flute. What is different between the two is obviously one hole, but also, with a 6 hole flute you always have to keep your third finger from the top on. (You are still playing in a 5 note pentatonic scale)

The good thing about a 6 hole flute, comparing with a 5 hole flute, which is restricted to the pentatonic scale, is that you can play all notes (all 12 semitones/half notes) in a western scale, which means that you can play any music you'd like. (scales that are based on 12 notes)

                                                                    5 versus 6 holes

When you have the right placements of your holes, comes the fun part. Tuning your flute. I will go through the whole flute (chambers, measurements, bore sizes, tools and tuning in a coming posts)



5 hole Pine Flutes

Research and wood

So I began to research about the Native American flute and got to know that you are not allowed to call it a Native American Flute, unless you are from an American indigenous tribe. But you are allowed to call it a Native American Style Flute.
You have a few good sites on the Internet, where you can get good information. I found that even if you found a site with great explanation how to make a flute, it takes many tries and errors to learn what works best for you.
So I began to search for wood. Best wood to use for beginners are soft wood.


The wood I began to make flutes with was Pine. But after a few flutes I discovered that the wood can't have any nodes! I found that out when I had almost finished the second flute. The whole side of the long barrel split after I went over the node with my chisel. Not a happy moment.....

So I was out looking for wood again and I found American Aromatic Red Cedar. It cost around $11 AUS/m. I love working with it and the finish is a deep red colour. Absolutely beautiful.