Flute Notes' Blog

As a musician advances in ability and technique it becomes more and more necessary for that student to begin to self-evaluate their rehearsals and performances.  Doing so helps the student notice areas of deficiency that they otherwise may never have noticed in their playing.  Having the right kind of digital audio recorder available for these practice and performance sessions is important, yet the differences between the dozens of recorders on the market is as vast as the difference in quality between a beginner flute and a professional model.  Depending on the student’s needs and budget there are dozens of different digital audio recorders to choose from, but keep the following tips in mind before shelling out any hard earned cash.

Features To Look For In Digital Audio Recorders- Size
Flutists and players with other small instrument cases value what little space they have available in their equipment bags.  In these cases the size of a recorder can often be one of the most important features.  In terms of size nothing can beat the Yamaha PockeTrak series of digital audio recorders.  Their 2G model is barely bigger than a few sticks of gum.  However, as with almost all recorders the size of the microphone will often relate closely to the quality of the recording.  As such the PockeTrak C24 or Zoom H1 are not only small but their slightly larger microphones produce much more accurate recordings.

Features To Look For In Digital Audio Recorders- Memory
A second feature to look for in a digital audio recorder is the size of the internal memory.  Most of the current crop of digital audio recorders have a removable memory card that can be upgraded as high as 32GB or more although most ship with only 2GB of storage.  More than enough for a rehearsal or a private practice session but when recording on the highest quality mode more storage space is a nice luxury to have available. Using one of several online guides it is fairly easy to compare the individual memory and microphone specifications as well as read reviews of many digital audio recorders that are currently available.

Digital Audio Recorder Features- Metronome and Tuner
Lastly, be on the lookout for overall convenience.  Practicing musicians should never be without a tuner and a metronome, and many digital audio recorders also provide those functions in the same compact device.  A unit with good metronome and tuning software yet slightly lacking in audio recording quality would be the Tascam PT-7.  Other units such as the Zoom H4n top the charts in every area, but that level of quality also demands a fairly steep price tag.

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Chad Criswell is a music education technology specialist and regular columnist for several music education magazines and online music education web sites.  His blog and informational articles are available at MusicEdMagic.com

By Steve Conway

Between the first beat of a drum on Thursday and the last trill of the flute solo on Sunday morning there was a whole lot of jamming going on … and more. A group of 40 dedicated and talented flute players gathered at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (which looks, feels, and sounds like a mediaeval castle) to sharpen, perfect, and expand their musical performance. Sometimes musicians played one-on-one with one of the 15 student-facilitators who received three days of special training prior to the main event which was billed as Flute Haven Native Flute School. Other times each musician played solo for the group. However, during the coup de theatre each musician transformed into the individual cells of a single musical organism possessing heart, brain, and nervous system …that filled the halls with fantastic symphonies of sound.

Leading the fray was Clint Goss, the man I refer to as the Chief Inspirationist. Clint led, coaxed, lured, and nudged us to reach new levels of performance with improvisation, different musical modes, instilling a sense of rhythm, and introducing new advanced playing techniques that allowed all of us to test the limits of our individual impossibility. (This is based upon the notion that you know you have achieved the possible only by challenging the impossible). Vera Shanof was the wagon master who looked after keeping this musical organism moving along smoothly. In addition to the facilitators mentioned above, there were three major track leaders.

Ron Kravitz led the percussion sessions and provided rhythm backup during group sessions. Eric Miller provided guitar backup and managed recording duties. Finally, Lynn Miller, who majors in laugh therapy (my opinion), led the vocal sessions.

From my point-of-view the sessions are best described as an astonishing collection of activities comprising a musical short course jam-packed with the unexpected, inspiring, that was both physically and emotionally demanding. The very first activity, on Thursday evening in the main hall, began with the mob totally engaged in beating a lively rhythm on the drums and ended with the majority of the attendees locked into an almost frenzied state of dancing, twirling, chanting, and waving arms until they simply ran out of energy. This, according to the Chief Inspirationist, is called warm ups and there certainly were no cool people by the end of the sessions. I’m certain it took several hours for everyone to wind down enough to get some sleep. For a few, the nerves continued to jingle, jangle and twang the night away.

Solos offered every person the opportunity to incorporate some new licks into their improv repertoire or simply to play as the spirit moved them. They’d put out their sound and there it was! No wrong notes was the rule and nobody heard any. We also were able to play with percussion and string accompaniment and, for some, new, exotic instruments such as the Hang and the Shruti box.

A person would be hard put to declare that one track was best and another left something to be desired. Some tracks were just plain fun – like the wonderful warm-ups; others were  intellectually challenging, for me at least. I suppose that would include all of the different scales presented. In total, Flute Haven was physically and emotionally strenuous, illuminating, and inspiring. That said, I have to admit to having a favorite experience.

On Saturday morning Erik Miller led a track that was fun, richly enjoyable, and a total surprise. If two people play together it’s a duet and four people make a quartet, then I guess there must be a term for 40 musicians, but I couldn’t find it. So I settled for bunchet, in this case a large group of people playing music together. Erik took his bunch of musicians and divided them into three groups. All groups vocalized and also played flutes. One played A minor flute, one E minor, and one D minor. Each group was assigned only three notes to sing or play–first, third, and fifth, not necessarily in that order. So there you have it, there were three groups, three pitches, and three notes. With Erik’s leadership and accompaniment on guitar and a total of one hour of time, the musical result was simply extraordinary. Heavenly, actually.

There was no audience. The players resonated and entrained to the beat of their own music, the beautiful harmonics, and the pure simplicity of the sound. Every cell of this musical body danced to the same beautiful, melodic, and muted softness as their creations washed across the room and the people in gentle waves. At the end of this impromptu recital many of the musicians, including yours truly, wore a look of wonderment on his or her face. “WOW” was a common exclamation. There were 14 tracks of which this was only one.

The Wagon Master, Vera Shanof and her able staff of helpers, planned and caused the attendees and facilitators to execute a very ambitious track schedule. On Friday there were eight sessions and six on Saturday with each session running between one hour and an hour and a quarter. All were pretty demanding, none were a breeze. But despite the hectic schedule, our musical organism carried on through the evenings and into late hours with jam sessions providing entertainment for ourselves and a respectable crowd of local party goers. On Friday night we commandeered the stage at Steel City Coffee House and Saturday evening at Pickering Creek Inn. Anyone who wanted to perform could and most did. The owners and managers of these establishment willingly gave over the entertainment duties to Flute Haven and offered fulltime employment. I’m sure the city of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania will long remember the weekend the fluties came to town and all the crazy people playing.

Jeff Ball has been one of the premier NAF artists for over a decade and I have been a loyal listening fan since first discovering his music.  He became my first flute instructor through his book  The Trailhead to the Native American Courting Flute.  He has a style that is difficult to quantify and perhaps that is what I like most about his eclectic sensibilities. Perhaps “contemporary-traditional” comes as close as anything else.  The simple NAF has proven to be one of the most versatile of all instruments.  While not native himself, his music carries much of the feel of the native culture in it.

“So he plays traditional flute” you ask?  Well no, but I would say he often returns to these roots.  Ghost Town is a musical excursion across our great land, inspired by its beauty, majesty, and expansiveness. Woven into the tapestry of this musical landscape are the sounds of Native America. This is done through the use of native percussion, spoken word, and the traditional sound of the native flute. Yet it is at the same time “contemporary” and brings to the musical palette colors of western music as well, guitar, bass, drum kit, Hang, and certainly, when he deems it appropriate, a more contemporary native flute voice. You are invited to come along with me as I share how this music affects my being, the places it takes me in my mind, and the story it whispers to me.

Track One-  Before Dawn: This number opens with peaceful, meditative, and seductive sensibilities. The melody is free flowing supported by the underlying percussive elements. Opening with the steady heartbeat of a native drum and flute, and is carried along with various elements of the kit. The piece is lightly interspersed with keyboard and rattle. Listen for the half- holed notes, the first at about the 43 second mark, and notice the emotion they evoke. As we awaken to this tune we are ready for our musical road- trip across this arid western expanse.

Track Two- The Walking Land: Our journey continues against the soft chords of guitar and haunting voice of a bass NAF. The feel is expansive, haunting, yet melodic. We’re wafted along by the song of the flute as though we are a billowy cloud carried by the wind.  From the liner notes, “Waves of heat rise off the pavement-the road vanishing ahead. You’re driving fast, speeding for sure… yet the landscape barely moves.” This is the feeling expressed by this composition.

Track Three- El Baile Del Lobo (The Dance of the Wolf): Spanish guitar and upbeat percussive elements frame this piece. What catches the ear is the melody line, toe tapping, free spirited, and engaging. At around  2 minutes into the piece, the pace slows with a guitar solo interlude. The melody is reengaged by the flute and dances with us to the conclusion. May I have this dance? This tune reminds me of the Spanish heritage of the west.

Track Four- Across Time: Immediately one senses the timeless feel of this space. The sound of the flute harkens to an old, bygone world. We are transported in time to a place we have not known before. Our solace is momentary but we have enjoyed our musical interlude– a brief time of contemplation, introspection, and repose.

Track Five- Into The Sky: From the liner notes:  “You’ve seen photographs but we were not prepared…not for this. Who knew you were so small… so insignificant…its magnitude mocks your tiny trails.” Slow, expansive, and ethereal… the track opens with guitar, strumming, with gentle note bends, followed by the flute call.  Jeff holds the notes and lets them fall off in the distance as though the notes float away on the breeze. The feeling evoked by the sounds transports us to a high promontory looking out across the vastness of the surrounding horizon (I’m reminded of my experiences at the of the Acoma Pueblo).

Track Six- Chasing Daybreak: The band awakens us.  Our heart beats to the percussive sounds. Jeff makes good use of whistle and bird calls to set the mood. We embark, lured by the voice of the flute. The special smells, feelings, and sensations of a new day dawning are conjured up. We leave in expectant anticipation of what lies ahead.

Track Seven- Last Man Standing: “Dazed and thirsty from the drive-you pull off to get a drink. Your feet–in a hot numbness–carry you from the car toward a framework.” We have journeyed into the heat of the day. The excitement of the early day has given way to the reality of the elements. The track opens with the wind whistle evoking the feeling of harshness, barrenness, and aimlessness. The beat is steady and the bass flute voice calling us onward, though our countenance is lowered. The scenes around us are weathered, and we sense we might be “the last man standing”.

Track Eight- The Saving Dream: This track features the dramatic voice of Robert Mirabal.  He speaks the story of the Sunflower interspersing words from his native language but giving the narrative in English. The musical backdrop is provided by the gentle sounds of the Hang and a soft bass flute. The narrative is passionate and compelling. For the writer this is a “story within the story”.  As an interesting side note the story-poem was written by the band’s drummer, Ted Natale.

Track Nine- Ghost Town: Opening with the strings of Spanish guitar we are beckoned to a long lost place, long since abandoned by its’ denizens. It is a haunting place the flute calls us to. We imagine the place once filled with the voices of humanity, vibrant, and alive with the hopes and dreams of those that once made this place their home. Now abandoned, the flute call breathes life, even if momentarily, as this place comes alive again in our imaginings.

Track Ten- Return to Big Sky: As our day begins to wane our attention is drawn to the red sky, of wispy white clouds, and we sense a release from the harsh elements around us. A flute-guitar duet driven gently by moving percussion, providing a needed , yet pensive respite, as we try to process all we have sensed on our journey.

Track 11- Red Earth: This song features Lowery Begay providing the vocals. The song is upbeat with a timeless message. We remember all the cultures who have called this place home. Over time they have mingled. There has been conflict and strife but this has forced us to a deeper appreciation for all those the creator has made Red, Yellow, Black, or White. The music is upbeat, the future is bright, and we can walk hand-in-hand as brothers. “After all we all hold our children in the same way!”

Bonus Track: Dust Letters and Lies-Featuring Shelley Morningsong: This track comes to us courtesy of Silverwave records.  It is a nice vocal number, a bit bluesy, that fits into the overall theme of the CD.  Jeff adds an appropriate flute line as a bridge. It follows directly after the last track so be aware of it. Slow and emotive, it is a wonderful way to end our journey.

As you interact with the music and the words you will write your own version. Let the music speak to your unique experience, take notes for your own musical diary, climb aboard with the band and take a unique musical trip you will personally write. Again from the liner notes, “Ghost Town is the music of the roadways, people, and land between the tourist destinations and vacations spots… this is the west-through the eyes of a musical traveler”.

Forbidden Fruit

by Clint Goss, clint@goss.com, May 30, 2008

A friend of mine came to me with a problem. She is a solid intermediate Native Flute player and had taken a lesson with an experienced teacher. She had played one of her songs for him and upon hearing one particular note in her song, he advised her that she should never, ever play that note again. Ever.

“Why?” I asked. Her hesitant and jumbled response had the flavor of “wrongdoing” and “sinful”.

She went on to say that this incident had led her backwards down her path of growth on the Native Flute. She could barely play anything. What she could manage to play felt stiff and unnatural.

“Which note is it?” I was dying to find out. So she played a short passage, and stopped her breath just short of the forbidden note. But she had put her fingers down for the note, and I immediately knew which note it was!

I was brought up in a Roman Catholic environment, and I was taught early how to determine whether something is sinful. The first step is to check out the list of the seven deadly sins: pride, gluttony, sloth, lust, greed, envy, and anger.

I cannot imagine any musical note as being remotely gluttonous or slothful. And since this particular note would have been so beautiful in her song (if she had played it), anger and greed were immediately ruled out. Could the note make her playing so beautiful that she would be compelled to sins of pride or lust? If so, then playing in canyons, or with a grand piano, or a cello, or even with a reverb unit would certainly be more sinful than just this one note. So that leaves envy … hmmm … maybe the note was so beautiful it causes envy in others. However, unlike money or a Maserati, simply seeing the fingering when the note is played is enough for even a novice flute player to have their own beautiful version of the forbidden note.

Recently the Vatican has expanded the list of sins to include polluting, taking drugs, becoming obscenely rich, cloning, and “promoting social injustice”. Try as I might, I could not see how any note could be turned into these vices. Moving on to the Ten Commandments … the famous “Thou shall” and “Thou shall not” rules. It seems that it would be very hard for a simple musical note to violate any of them.

So what was going on here?

Most of us have grown up surrounded by the rigorous culture of western classical music traditions. This culture is full of opinions on how music should be played. Approval of a student’s musical performance is given or withheld based on how close a student comes to replicating the precise sequence of notes written down by a composer, and playing it the way it “should” be played. When the opinions of “should” and “ought” and “right” and “wrong” become too much, we lose the joy of the music and move onto something else that is fun.

In contrast, the people who introduced me to the Native Flute put music forth with no “should” or “ought” or “right” or “wrong”. There was only the encouragement to emulate a bird, or access the sounds that felt right in my heart. If I listened to the playing of others, I wanted to get that sound. If I wanted to play hard and fast, I went for it. If I felt like a humming into the flute, I hummed away. The “should” was replaced by a “want”.

Yes, there are social contracts we have with our neighbors. Blasting music out at 2AM with the amplifier turned up to the max is socially unacceptable. And blasting your own eardrums into deafness with headphones is likewise unacceptable.

But if you are within your reasonable sonic domain and not doing yourself any physical harm, then I believe it is your right to explore the music that is in your heart at that moment. Do what inspires you, follow your bliss, right now. If it’s playing Black Sabbath melodies on a 6-hole cedar flute, have at it. If you’re angry and your flute is within reach … put that angry passion into your music. You won’t regret it. Anything that brings our music closer to our emotions heals us and gives our emotions a voice. The magic of music is that it can carry emotions to our listeners like no other artistic medium.

After all this soul searching, I was no closer to actually helping my friend. Arguments of whether something qualifies as sinful or not simply do not hold the power that music itself holds. So I played her melody again, with the forbidden note, and it immediately struck me where I had heard the forbidden note before. It is the central, beautiful, heart-opening note played by one of the most central flute players in the central theme of the series “How the West Was Lost”. In minutes I brought up the sound track, extracted a short sample of the melody, and sent her a MP3
file.

I really do look forward to hearing her play the next time I see her.

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Clint Goss has been facilitating Native Flute “Playshops” since 2003 when he was first invited to offer a session at the Flower Mound gathering. Since then, he and his wife, Vera, have facilitated Native Flute as well as general music workshops at the Omega Institute, FluteQuest, the Potomac Flute Festival, the Flute Fall-In, the Zion Canyon Art and Flute Festival, Immaculata University, the Stony Point Retreat Center, and Jeronimo’s Conference Center. For more information on Native Flute Playshops, visit www.ClintGoss.com.