Anasazi Flutes

The Beginning...
About 2 years ago, I saw an ad for the Zion Canyon Flute & Art Festival in Springdale, Utah. What drew my interest was an article describing the Anasazi Flute. I immediately knew that there was something special about this instrument and that I would have one. I drove out to Springdale, and within the first hour I found the vendor tent for Michael Graham Allen (Coyote Oldman). Michael wasn't there, but his wife, M.J., greeted me with a smile, handed me a flute and said, "Here, take it and try it out". I took it down by the stream that bordered the festival grounds and tried to toot a few notes, with not a whole lot of success, but nonetheless I was determined. After M.J.adjusted the lacings and bagged the flute, I took the flute back to my hotel and sat out on the balcony at sunset, surrounded by the insect-foraging bats and got light-headed from hyper-ventilating. Little by little, the sound came. At every playing I felt a connection with another time and place, a place where people lived lives so different from mine, but we were connected by the sound that seemed to bridge the ages.

Cut to the Present...
I still play Anasazi flute, but now I'm making a version of the flute out of thin-walled PVC pipe for people who want to get started but don't know if they want to spring for a wooden instrument.
The Anasazi Dream flutes I make reproduce the same scale and have a warm, vibrant sound that is very musical and meditative. The thin walls of the PVC are quite resonant and are not too far removed in size from the box elder suckers (or shoots) that were originally used by the ancient people.

This is how my first Anasazi flutes look like before the upcoming Yosemite Flute Festival in Oakhurst, CA this September 26-28. (Click on the photo for a larger view). I will be offering them at a booth on Saturday & Sunday(Sept. 27-28) . It's our first time out as vendors. I will have a basic instruction guide to the flutes. We'll also offer some Hopi and Lakota-themed greeting cards from my original oil paintings as well. I'm looking forward to participating and hope to see some new friends from the Zion Flute School this past summer. Please post a comment if you have any questions about these instruments.

Listen...

Here is an mp3 file of one of the flutes. This demonstration is in the lower first octave, but the flute can soar much higher and be very clear in the high register.