Anybody tried the Olorin ABS resin Native American flute?

[spittin_in_the_wind]

I'm nosing around thinking of trying NA flute. Olorin makes one, sold by HMT, which is resin, G/F# minor bodies. Is this a reasonable "first flute"? And if not, are the wooden ones difficult to maintain? I saw a "starter flute" on the Butch Hall website, made of wood, also a good price.

And no, I'm not going to be recording it with an electric guitar, this is purely for personal pleasure. I'm sure I will stick to just NA music when playing it, respectfully.

And on another note, how different are the NA music traditions? My kids have been listening to a CD (for kids) by Joanne Shenandoah, and the music is very pretty, although some is obviously westernized on that particular CD. I saw that Susato.com has NA sheet music, in a wide variety of traditions. Any recommendations?

Robin

[herbivore12]

On 2003-02-25 14:25, spittin_in_the_wind wrote:
I'm nosing around thinking of trying NA flute. Olorin makes one, sold by HMT, which is resin, G/F# minor bodies. Is this a reasonable "first flute"?

I have an Amon Olorin plastic flute, as well as a number of wooden NA flutes.

The AO flute is good for the price. Not quite as warm a sound as wood, and it clogs due to moisture buildup a bit faster. But excellent quality for the money (think I paid around $60).

And if not, are the wooden ones difficult to maintain? I saw a "starter flute" on the Butch Hall website, made of wood, also a good price.

I also have several Butch Hall flutes, which I like better than the AO plastic flute. A very good price for his instruments, which are well-regarded and sound very fine. I have his flutes in D minor, F#minor, and the "Little Horse" model (or whatever it's called) in, I think, A-minor. The bargain model is not as full-toned, and a little breathier, than the "concert" models, but is charming in its own right.

One thing to note is that the AO flutes and Butch's flutes both use the same fingering system, which is slightly different to the system used by most other makers. Only a couple notes are fingered differently, but it can make moving to a different maker's flute a little confusing, at first. I have no trouble after a couple minutes.

And no, I'm not going to be recording it with an electric guitar, this is purely for personal pleasure.

NA flutes are great improvisational instruments, and almost impossible to play "out of tune" being pentatonic. Good fun.

For very good flute music, I like Mary Youngblood's solo flute recordings (can't recall the titles offhand). I don't like her more contemporary stuff as much, but her playing is great, and I really like the recording she did of flute alone, inside a natural cave. Nakai is also good, of course.

I saw that Susato.com has NA sheet music, in a wide variety of traditions. Any recommendations?

R. Carlos Nakai has a book which describes a method for notating NA flute music, which looks very similar to regular sheetmusic and is pretty easy to learn (he calls it the TABlature system). And their are several books with tunes out using the TABlature method. You can find these at Andy's Front Hall, as you mentioned, as well as at The Oregon Flute Store (which is where I got the AO plastic flute several years ago):

http://www.oregonflutestore.com/

Hope this helps,

Aaron

[herbivore12]

Oh, and there are some beautiful flutes at:

http://www.heartsongflutes.com/flute.htm

Some gorgeous carving and stone inlay work in the galleries there. I covet a closed-end drone flute in the red-tailed hawk style, personally. . . If only I had so much disposable income!

--aaron