How to Make Native American Style Five Hole Bamboo Flutes.

By Jamie Brown

A blow by blow, fully illustrated manual on "How to make Native American Style Five Hole Bamboo Flutes" using a few basic tools and minimal wood working skills.
If I can do it, then so can you. Follow these instructions, and the end result should be an instrument you are proud of, capable of making beautiful sounds and perhaps, like me, leading to a passion for creating a whole range of different flutes and even exploring how to make flutes from other cultures. The Japanese also have beautiful bamboo flutes..

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jamie Brown
• Release date: Oct 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463820261

Book preview

How to Make

Native American Style Five Hole Bamboo Flutes.

Jamie Brown

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2018 Jamie Brown

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

A long time ago there was a boy who fell in love with a beautiful young girl.

He tried to get her attention, but she never seemed to notice him. When she was present he rode his horse proudly, or dived off rocks and swam across the river when she was fetching water, but the girl paid no attention.

Feeling sad, the boy walked into the forest and sat down beneath a long dead cedar tree.

As he sat there thinking about the girl, a woodpecker landed on a hollowed limb that was over his head, and began to peck holes in it...tap tap tap.

Suddenly, the branch broke off and fell next to the boy and, as the wind blew, he heard music coming from it. He picked it up and found that when he covered the holes and blew into it, he could make beautiful, mournful music that matched the his feelings.

The young girl heard this sound echoing from the forest, and it captured her heart. She followed the music and saw the boy sitting there playing the first flute, given to him by the Woodpecker, and as she listened, she fell in love with him.

And they lived happily ever after.

The flute is one of the first musical instruments ever invented and examples thousands of years old have been found all over the world. As in the story, the sound of this wood-wind instrument is beautiful and mournful, and the type you will build using this book produces sounds that will make your heart melt.

Making the Bamboo flute is more an Art than a Science. The variations in the internal diameter, length, wall thicknesses, flue dimensions, odd shapes and deformations in the cane – all contribute to making each flute unique in sound. Some will conform more to the western concept of what is good and others will not. But they can all be made to sound pleasing. This variability means making a concert tuned flute difficult. You will be lucky to make a bamboo flute that can accompany an instrument that is in perfect tune (at 440Hz). Think of the bamboo flute as a solo instrument, played on its own.

Most modern Native American Indian style flutes are tuned to a minor pentatonic scale. The finger holes are at a mathematically designed position to produce the required notes of the scale. Traditionally many tribes made flutes based on the hand size of the owner (Grandfather tuning). The various parts of the flute were a hands-width in length, and finger holes one or two finger widths apart. Consequently each flute