NAF flute to match Irish flute

Irish Flute
1

I’m looking to buy a Native American Flute- I’m looking for a UK source as I’m not willing to endure the customs issues with purchasing from America.

I’ve posted a question on this forum-

http://forums.fluteportal.com/index.php?showtopic=9250&st=0&gopid=109619&#entry109619

as it has a emphasis on NAFs- unfortunatly it’s not massively active, and one of my questions concerns which key of pentatonic minor NAF scale will correspond to fitting with the major D scale of my Irish flute ( a copley delrin).

I’ve copied and pasted my question below, and put in bold the relevant part about matching the NAF with the Irish flute, but, just on the off-chance any board members here have experience with UK NAF flutes, I’ve left the rest of the question in, as non-bold text

I’m in the UK and looking to buy a decent NAF. I’ve checked a few of the suggested makers websites and there seem to be some good possibilites- I’ve also found this site-

http://www.twofeathers.co.uk/store/categor…?id_category=34

which stock a range of the “high spirts” flutes, which are made by Odell Borg (or I presume so, as each flute has a video link to one of his demo vids).

I’m thinking of this model-

http://www.twofeathers.co.uk/store/product…?id_product=581

which is a reasonable price and in the key of G- I currently play Irish flute and various other ‘folk flutes’, so I’m confident that I’ll have no problems using the slightly lower key of G for my first NAF.

Main question is, does anyone have a flute by Odell and, if so, are they OK flutes.

Secondly, had anyone purchased from twofeathers.co.uk and found their flutes/service to be fine?

On a more technical note, I’ve recently been playing improvised tunes on my Irish low D flute while disciplining myself to stick to only the notes which, as I understand it, make up the traditional NAF minor scale.

Which, on my D major keyed Irish flute, I’ve been doing by using the notes E,G,A,B,D only. I find it a very fluid and pleasant scale to improvise with.

So, I was thinkng of getting a NAF in the key which would match my Irish flute- am i right in thinking that would be a NAF in the key of E (minor)? (I’ll be getting a 6 hole flute, but with the traditional option of using a tie to make it a 5 hole).

Obviously, a flute in E will be longer and more expensive than the G flute linked to above, plus, on the above site, the mid-E is out of stock, so, I’d like to be very sure that it will be the right key to match my Irish flute before trying to buy one.

Thanks in advance for any help with these questions.

2

Interesting subject. In my before life, NAF was what I played and made. In general, they are 5 or 6 hole end blown flutes with a slowing chamber over the nest with a bird on top and into the sound chamber. They are usually close to pentonic scale (mode 1,4). A few makers make them diatonic like the simple irish flute.

Hope this helps. If you want my thoughts on the high spirit flutes, let me know via pm.

Rob Robison aka skyspirit in Tennessee the last home of the cherokee.

3

Yes, you’re on the right track if your goal is to match the minor pentatonic scale of the NAF to the same scale playable on your [unkeyed, I presume] D flute.

There are 4 minor pentatonics easily playable on your flute - the one you mentioned, and three others:

E G A B d
F# A B c# e
A c d e g
B d e f# a

So a NAF in one of those keys (E,F#,A,B) could be matched on the flute, for the minor pentatonic or any of its modes. Specifically, as you said, an E NAF would match the E minor pentatonic that you say you like.

More generally, look at the note chart here (under Nakai Tablature and Notes):

http://www.flutopedia.com/scale_PentatonicMinor.htm

If you read across each NAF key, you can decide if you can handle those notes on your flute. For example, if you’re comfortable playing F-natural on flute, you could also match a D NAF.

Even more generally, you can follow the same procedure with any of the scales listed here under “Progression of the Scales”:

http://www.flutopedia.com/scales.htm

Hope that helps.

4

That is very helpful. Didn’t even occur to me that there’d be other easily playing pentatonic scales on my flute. Thanks :slight_smile:

I think I’d favour the first 2, cos I’m much more comfortable with the deep notes on flutes.

5

If you can find a maker of NAF’s that offer the diatonic scale, then go for that. But be aware, that most NAF’s don’t have a full 2 octave scale, mostly only a couple of notes into the 2nd octave, especially if you want a low D or there about in key.

The other alternative is to just get a Low D whistle, from one of the known makers, which have more available notes in the octaves than any NAF whistle available (usually), in general. If you find a whistle maker in your neck of the woods that offers a good Low D whistle, then you’re ahead of the game, and it will sound very differently from an Irish flute, besides and have more notes available.

It’s up to you what you really want, but I think there are other good options besides an NAF if you want a different scale. Choice of materials and such are up to you, and the offerings available in new or used whistles, or other flutes.

Good luck in your search, and hope you find what you really want at a reasonable price.

6

No- I’ve already got a low D whistle and don’t really use it much- I find the flute much nicer than low D whistles.

As for the scale, I’m not really interested in the diatonic- again, i’ve already got a perfectly good flute to cover that.

I was wanting a NAF because of the pentatonic scale (plus the option to remove the tie and have a 6 hole scale, when desired) because I think it’s a really nice scale to improvise with, and I also like the tone/sound of the NAF.

Having been playing around with the scale on my Irish flute for the past few days, it’s occured to me that it would be nice to get a side-blown flute with that scale, but I’ve not heard of anyone making such a flute.

The other reason I was wanting a NAF, is cos it’s the kind of instrument you can hand over to a non-musician, and, due to the nature of the scale and the ease of note-production (i.e. it’s a fipple flute), they’d be able to immediately play something that sounds reasonably nice: and, I thought it would be interesting to play over it with my current flute.

In general, I’ve never really got on with fipple flutes/whistles, and the NAF variety is the only variation that I’ve not tried at some point.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

7

Hi,

Odell’s flutes are of good quality, so you should feel confident on buying one of his flutes !

For your first NAF i guess the best choice is to get one in G minor (6 holes), which is one of the most versatile key
for NAF and gives you the opportunity to play in different styles, blues, contemporary, etc.., and with different instruments like piano
and guitar.

NAF is a a lot of fun and also a very spiritual musical instrument… !

Good luck with your choice !

8

Then here’s something you might try. Tape up a whistle to play pentatonic, and you can try out the basic 6 hole NAF fingerings before you buy. All you need are scissors and a roll of electrician’s tape or Scotch (sello) tape.

  1. Completely cover the T2(#2) and B3(#6) holes.

  2. Half cover the T1(#1) and B2(#5) holes.

The whistle should look like this, where @=taped D=half-taped O=open

[Top] D @ O | O D @ [Bottom]

Place your bottom ring finger on the half-taped B2 (not B3) hole then let the other fingers above fall into place on the other holes, taped or not. Your hands will be shifted up by one hole, and your top finger will fall on an “imaginary” hole at the top of the tube.

Now - and using D whistle as the example - you can play the following pentatonic fingerings:

xxx xxx = D
xxx xxo = F
xxx xoo = G
xxx ooo = A
xox ooo = C

Voilà - you have a D minor pentatonic whistle with NAF fingerings. For the higher D simply overblow the lower one. That’s the only fingering that differs from NAF.

I recommend trying this first on a high whistle rather than low, where the bottom hand stretch will be a challenge.

If you have a C flute, you can now harmonize with your taped D whistle. Or if you happen to have an E whistle you can tape up, you’ll have an E minor pentatonic whistle you can play with your D flute.

9

Just adding … Of course, you can easily force a D whistle, low or high, to play only E minor pentatonic by simply taping over the T1(#1) and B2(#5) holes.

xxx xxx = D
xxx xxo = E
xxx xoo = also E
xxx ooo = G
xxo ooo = A
xoo ooo = B
ooo ooo = also B

You don’t get the NAF fingerings this way, but you get a D whistle you can noodle with your D flute.

10

Thanks for that :slight_smile:

I’d effectively been doing the 2nd version on my Irish flute, but without tape, just restricting which fingers I took off.

The 1st version is very intriguing though, because they method I used, while it gives the right notes, obviously does not replicate the true NAF fingering.

I’ve not tried it out yet though, as got a little impatient and ordered an actual NAF, which arrived this morning :slight_smile:

It’s this one-

http://twofeathers.co.uk/store/product.php?id_product=122

Thanks for everyone who offered advice, including those who were critical of this make of flute- it all helped me in making my decision.

Having received it, i think I can understand why many who are deeply into the NAF tradition are crictical of this make of flute, and yet this doesn’t contradict the fact that I think I make a good decision.

Because I am very happy with this flute, and, unwrapping it was a strange and beautiful experience, because, till now, I’ve been a player of musical instruments, and, it’s now obvious that the NAF is something more than a musical instrument.

As well as being a musical instrument, it’s an object of… something that would, to describe it, have to involve the word ‘spiritual’ :slight_smile:

Many of the things I’ve read online, in the process of deciding which flute to get, talk of ‘finding’ ‘their flute’, or, more often, the flute finding them: and it’s clear that many players of the NAF are not just looking for an in-tune instrument with excellent tone.

And, from that perspective, I can see why many of them would not rate highly, this kind of NAF, as these Odell borg flutes are probably the closest thing to a mass-produced NAF. Certainly, having read some makers accounts of how, when a client commisions a flute for them, they will locate the wood by wandering into a nearby valley, meditate, play some music, and wait for the valley stream to point them to a suitable tree or discarded branch, I can see why someone who bought those kind of flutes, would skip the type I’ve just got.

However, I really like this flute- it looks fantastic and sounds very nice: I can imagine if I’m still playing it regularly in 6 months time, i may well have the urge to consider a more expensive flute of the above kind, but, for now, as an introduction to the NAF, it’s perfect.

Even with the side blown diatonic flute, i’ve always, when improvising, tended to favour the lower octave, and, with the NAF, I can see that that is where most of my playing is going to be.

It’s an instrument of restricted range, both in numbers of notes (it’s a pentatonic scale) and the fact that an initial experimental attempt to overblow, convinced me to stick to the first octave :slight_smile:

The bore is very wide, which I know from flute/whistle making discussions here, favours the low notes at the expense of the high ones.

But the tone is very special- the strange extra chamber before the fipple, which seems unique to the NAF, really does give it a special sound.

And the pentatonic minor scale, which sounds nice even when played on a diatonic Irish flute as I described in a previous post, makes even more sense on the NAF, where you can play the whole scale without overblowing.

I have read accounts of how, if the 6th hole (3rd up from the fipple) is uncovered, that it makes diatonic music possible, or even a chromatic scale. To be honest, I think it’s a very optimistic use of the word ‘possible’, kind of like it’s ‘possible’ to juggle 7 balls whilst riding a unicyle :slight_smile: i.e. it can be done, but I don’t think I’ll be bothering (and I speak as someone who’s fairly good at juggling and unicycling).

No. I think i’ll stick to using this instrument for what it excells at- playing beautiful, simple, improvised tunes in the pentatonic scale, in the first octave. If I want to play some diatonic melodies, I’ll use my Irish flute.

So, all in all, a good buy, and a new addition to my growing quiver of ‘simple wind instruments of the world’. :slight_smile:

Thanks once again to everyone who offered advice on this thread and by pm- much appreciated.

11

Well there you have it, then. Enjoy!

12

One thing about the NAF- I was playing it this morning and I almost felt that I was cheating :slight_smile:

I’ve never known a wind instrument that sounds so nice for improvising, yet is so easy to play.

The extra sound chamber gives a great tone just by blowing gently into it, and the scale makes it quite tricky to play a note that doesn’t fit.

I’m going to make a point of asking people who’ve got no experience with wind instruments to try it out, and se what they sound like.

I don’t think the same will apply if you’re trying to play actual established tunes, but for improvising it’s fantastic.

13

I got here too late. Oh well. The NAF was the first instrument I really fell in love with. You’re right about it being easy to play, and it certainly does seem to have a spiritual side to it, even if you don’t start there. Often I find myself feeling like the instrument is playing me rather than the other way around. I have let other people try out my NAFs and to my surprise they didn’t sound very good at it. I’ve also considered the idea of a sideblown flute in a NAF scale. I don’t know if you can buy them anywhere but it would be very easy to make one if you know the notes you want. I may do that in December when I have the time for it again. If I do I’ll be sure to post about it here on the forums.

14

I think the main thing would be finding a target market for a 5 hole NAF tuned side-blown flute.

I suspect that many current players of side-blown true flutes e.g. Irish flute players, may be appalled at the necessarily limited range, and the fact that it can’t play diatonic music.

Conversely, a lot of NAF players may not have the motivation to put in the time necessary to blow a side-blown flute, with the NAF they’re used to being basically a fipple-flute and so very easy to get a note out of.

However, amongst NAF players there’s a fair bit of interest in the Anasazi end-blown notch flute, and, in my experience, end-blown notch flutes are even trickier than side-blowns to get the hang of.

I do hope that, if anyone did make a side-blown NAF tuned flute, that they would embrace it’s nature, and not, for example, use a narrow bore just to try and extend it’s range much beyond the octave: I think that a wide bore would give a better low octave sound, and, IMO, a main characteristic of the NAF is that it happily sacrifices range so as to have a beautiful tone.

I guess an obvious maker to tackle it might be “Erik the Flutemaker”?

Waht about a plastic side-blown NAF Tipple flute? :slight_smile:

15

Can’t see how you could really ‘embrace its nature’ when that’s significantly influenced by separate air chambers you couldn’t reconcile with a side-blown flute embouchure?

16

Well, a NAF has several aspects to it’s nature i.e. it’s characteristic tone produced by the seperate air chambers, it’s pentatonic scale, it’s limited range, it’s spiritual aspects etc, etc.

If each aspect is preserved fully, then what you end up with is not a variation of the NAF, but, instead, simply another NAF :slight_smile:

With a side-blown pentatonic scaled, wide-bore flute, you get a different instrument, that has some of the nature of a NAF.

And the reasons I find the idea of that one aspect to change being the embrouchure (making it side blown), include-

  1. I think the tone of the NAF and the tone of a (well played) side blown flute have in common a certain beauty- more so, IMO, than any other fipple flute- basically, I think it would work very well and it’s an instrument I would like to play

  2. a purely practical reason- I live in a flat, like to play my flutes late at night, and don’t want to disturb the neighbours. The NAF doesn’t work for that- it can’t be played quietly, and, the techniques used to silence other fipple flutes, like the tin whistle, that involve tape etc over/near the fipple, don’t seem to work with the NAF.

Whereas, the side blown flute can be played at very low volume: so, with the instrument I’m talking about, you’d have something close to a NAF, that could be played really quietly.

  1. While the tone of the NAF is beautiful, it’s not got anywhere near as much variation potential as a side blown flute, whose volume, pitch and tone can be (with a lot of practice) varied very widely, at will. I like the thought of an instrument with the scale of a NAF, which can play the same music as an NAF, but with that extra potential for expression that I, as a side blown flute player, miss, when playing the NAF.

  2. I’ve heard that, as is common with many fipple flutes, the NAF played outdoors is prone to being badly affected by wind- side blown flutes are less susceptible to that.

That’s just a few reasons off the top of my head.

17

If I made one, I would make only one and only for my own personal enjoyment. Unless I enjoyed it quite a bit or someone else enjoyed it it enough to want one. Then I might make more. But perhaps someone with more motivation (and more skill) could find a niche market for them.

The limited range and scale of it is part of what makes the NAF such a joy to play. You don’t really have to worry about what you’re playing. You can just let it go. I agree that that’s not what all musicians want. But I also think that the ones that would refuse to take interest in an instrument because of that are missing out on something.

I don’t think that learning to play a sideblown flute should be an obstacle for anybody. I learned to do it over the last few months with no instruction (not even any reading or videos on the subject) on a flute that I made (which probably put me at a serious disadvantage). So anybody with a well made flute and a bit of instruction shouldn’t have much trouble at all. The biggest obstacle is probably the fact that they think there’s an obstacle.

The similarity in tone and increased control in the tone of a side blown flute are what made me first consider the idea of a side blown flute in the NAF scale when I made my flute over the summer. It seems like a perfect blend. Sure, you give up a bit of the character of each instrument, but you get a new character in the process. I have to believe that it would make some really beautiful music.

I think my NAFs are quieter than my flute, but I don’t have many examples of each to judge by. And perhaps I haven’t learned to play the flute quietly yet. As is, I can only get a nice tone if it’s rather loud.

And as someone with a lot of experience playing NAFs outside, they are quite susceptible to wind, though not quite as much as a whistle.