NMR ISSUE 31

Abhisheka
An Urban Wicca
Astrological Forecast 31
Caterpiller, Bobcat, Emu & Camel
Charge of the God
Editorial 31
Esoteric Symbology of the Tarot
History is a Lie
Home Schooling
Imagination or Mystical Experience
Letters 31
Magical Flute III The Materials
Orion
Primordial Tones:
The Colors of the Aura
The Dreamer from Lemuria
Where Do the Sacred Fires Burn?

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Magical Flute III: The Materials

By Lew Paxton Price

When creating a Native American flute, first you will need the proper materials. These include wood for the flute body, wood for the bird, tools to carve the wood, finishing sandpaper or emery, and the coating material. The Native American flute (henceforth called simply the love flute) was traditionally made of softwood rather than hardwood because softwood was easier to shape. One of the first woods to be used was elderberry, which has a soft pithy core that is very easy to remove. Today, softwood may be desirable for the same reason that a good acoustic guitar requires softwood for its face. Softwood is lighter and, therefore, vibrates more easily to amplify the sound. Although, many traditional love flutes are made with thick, heavy walls that do not help much to amplify the sound, times have changed. Unless you intend to play your flute in secret, or intend to amplify it electronically, you should have a flute with the best acoustic properties. That means one with walls that resonate easily.

The nature of the notes makes the energy of the note increase with its frequency. This means that higher notes usually sound louder than do lower notes. The flute walls should be designed to compensate for this tendency by amplifying the lower notes more than the higher notes. A flute barrel made of thin softwood, with properties similar to the spruce used on guitar faces will better amplify the lower notes that the flute plays.

On the other hand, hardwoods are very beautiful and more durable. A hardwood flute may tend to amplify the high notes nearly as much as the low, but the difference between hardwood and softwood is not very great because the chief factor is how the flute is made. Alder is a particularly beautiful hardwood and if one would like a good two-tone flute, it compliments red oak very well. There are many beautiful hardwoods available and it is much easier to give them a good finish than softwood.

The softwoods most commonly available where I am are cedar, redwood, pine and Douglas fir. With some effort, I can also find spruce. Frankly, the difference in sound between one of these softwoods and another is very slight. The way the flute is constructed, its mechanism, its hole sizes and placements, and its overall shape mean much more that the wood type. So you may choose the wood according to the type you like to work with and the way you want it to look.

Cedar comes in several varieties, the most common of which are Western Red Cedar and Incense Cedar. Red Cedar is actually a golden color when finished, kind of deep amber that sometimes has pinkish highlights. Incense Cedar is usually a lighter, whiter color. The differences in color between the dense and less dense portions of the wood make very lovely designs, especially in the red cedar. The annular rings can be either close together or far apart and this changes the design on the finished flute. Cedar is fairly easy to work, except that it has a spongy quality when attempting to compress it at right angles to the grain. This means that gouging or chiseling is more difficult than with other woods and that your sandpaper must be sharp and fresh for the shaping and finishing sandings.

Redwood comes in either a deep red, a dark brownish red, or an amber color. Any combination of these is possible on one flute, but more commonly, the amber is accompanied by one of the other colors rather than found alone. On much of the reddish wood, when the annular rings are far apart, the final shaping of the flute is difficult because the lighter colored areas are softer and tend to flatten out when sanded, while the darker colored areas are more dense and tend to become ridges. Otherwise, the reddish wood may be worked fairly easily. The amber redwood is usually very hard and nearly as hard to work as the tougher hardwoods, but it is more resistant to abuse.

Clear pine is a very light-colored wood, almost a stark white in contrast to the other types. Knotty pine is full of contrast between the light wood and the dark knots. Clear pine is the easiest of wood to work with; and knotty pine is only slightly more difficult (because the knots must be glued back in when they pop out). I like pine for the way its light color stands out with very subtle grain patterns. When playing with darker colored instruments, the pine is noticeable for its individuality.

Douglas fir is not considered a true fir, but a type of wood unlike any other. It is a bit harder to work than pine because it is more dense. It is a very reliable wood with which to work because rarely has no surprises. It is very strong, about half again as strong as the other woods, which makes it a good choice if you plan to take your flute fishing or backpacking. Douglas fir is amber and brown, usually with close annular rings. Sometimes it has a very interesting pattern and sometimes not. Although its colors are almost the same as cedar, its patterns are quite different. If you prefer some of the advantages of a hardwood, such as superior tensile strength and better impact resistance, Douglas fir will give you this plus most of the advantages of any other softwood.

When you have chosen the wood for the main body of your flute, you should next choose the wood from which the bird is to be made. In my experience, it is preferable to use a contrasting hardwood for the bird. The contrast gives the flute a fancy appearance and the hardness of the wood makes it more resistant to wear and tear. However, there is nothing to say that the bird cannot be made of the same wood as the flute body. Some people paint the bird and the flute body, so the wood type is incidental. I wouldn't recommend this because, to me, it is covering the wood grain with something that looks cheap. If you plan to spend a lot of time designing, crafting and consecrating a flute for your own special uses, you should pick good piece of wood that you prefer above all the others you have seen. It should be beautiful of its own inner nature and not need a lot of paint and decorations.

The wood you choose should probably be in a plank form. You will be cutting the bore half at a time and then putting the two halves together. In the old days, before the Native Americans had planks, a limb was split, hollowed out, and then placed back together again. You may still do this if you wish. It is not an easy process because the limb may crack or warp in the curing.

If you choose a plank, you will need one that is smooth on at least one side (the side that will be taking the glue for joining the two halves). It should be a one-inch plank which means the flute will be an inch thick. The width of it should be a minimum of 2 inches, and its length at least the length you plan to make your flute. The wood for the bird should be a minimum of 5 inches.

If you are using a router, you will need a round-nosed bit for it that is at least inch in diameter. You can also use a inch or 1 inch bit. This will be discussed further when we get to the design of the bore. If you are not using a router, you will need chisels, gouges, rasps, files and other tools that are obtainable from woodworking catalogs that sell tools for bedding gun barrels in wooden stocks. In fact, these tools will be handy even if you are doing most of the work with a router.

You will also need three grades of sandpaper or emery cloth or paper; rough for rough shaping, medium and fine. There is no set size for each of these, but the rough should be rough enough to shape the wood if necessary, the medium should be capable of removing the marks made by the rough paper, and the fine should be fine enough to provide the finish you want on your flute.

I do not recommend a lathe unless you happen to have one. Even then, you must use your head a bit to figure out how you are to turn the flute. The key is to make it longer than it will be in its finished form and to cut it down after it has been turned on the lathe. For the average woodworking amateur, a good rasp and a good eye will do the job just fine. If you have a belt sander, that will help save much time.

Lastly, you need a finishing material. It should penetrate like an oil and harden thoroughly. My own choice is the oil of the seeds of the Chinese Tung tree, which is readily available now that most countries have begun to grow their own Tung trees. This oil was used to construct runways in China for the American B-29's during World War II. The Chinese first placed large stones on what was to be the runway, then filled the gaps with smaller aggregate, and finished with a slurry of clay and Tung oil. So this oil did the same job that cement does for us today. It is used both as a finish and a drying agent for finishes made primarily of other oils. On a flute, it provides a hard surface that penetrates the wood for about an eighth inch, helping to prevent damage to the instrument, and is easy to repair. It might be best to read all the articles in this series before you decide upon the wood you wish to use. In the meantime, you can look at various types of softwood when you can find them in a finished form, and you can save a few dollars to cover the cost of materials.

1993 by Lew Paxton Price