If you enjoy making flutes and instruments and just want to be entertained check this guy out:

http://rockfreakinsolid.com/

I want to hang out with this guy

http://www.youtube.com/user/rockfreakinsol...u/5/QUQNA29a_A0

Enjoy
Ed

Wow Nice

thank for sharing

Cool, glad that somebody else enjyed it.

I've bookmarked his site and I'll definitely be making regular visits. I like his style of presentation--very down to earth and accessible.

How'd I miss this guy, fun, fun, fun, fun...

People can be so cool, Tenzin

Yes that is a keeper I will visit many times for sure

I think I will try to make an inexpensive pvc pipe flute with his instructions to see if I can get the info he shares.

It is all about math it seems

Hope some day he explains how to make a NAF and a Bansuri

His hair is something

Love his energy and passion for what he does, I just get exited

I was cheeking your site, love your flutes. very interesting the glass fetish

I just wanted to let you know that when one is in the flute page, the drum button dosen´t work
I didn't check all the buttons in every page but in this case it dosen´t works so someone may think it dosen´t work at all.


pd: well actually there is a lot of buttons that don't work in that page

Uhm, *wow* - just got sumthin' in me e-mail inbox that led me here... I had no idea anyone even noticed me or my website that much at all - THANX, PEEPS!!

Yes, although I've fallen a bit behind in blog posts (I've been developing a new instrument - an electric bass guitar from PVC pipe with silicon strings), I'll be back to keeping it up to date and running smoothly in a couple weeks here... and yes, I will be showing some good stuff on Native American flutes (I started on those when I was 13 - anyone check out my bio page on my website yet? lol), as well as the Bansuri (or perhaps the Chinese version, the D'tzu), bamboo saxophone, shakuhachi and other woodwinds... and some strings, percussions (cymbals, gongs, and loud electric drumsets from soda bottles and stuff)...

I really gotta say, this is a killer surprise to see such nice things said about what I've been doing - thanx so much!

P.S., if anyone has any questions, I'm about as sharp as a bag of wet mice, but I might just have some answers ^_~

Nia:wen

(Mohawk; thank you)

- Jesse Falls-Down-Laughing
Blackfoot/Mohawk-Cree

If you're ever in Nagoya, Japan - or in Portland, Main, USA, let's hang out!

- Falls-Down-Laughing

Thanx, Geoffrey!

As I mentioned in another reply, I've fallen a bit behind in that blog, due to my developing a new instrument, but I'll be bringing posts there up to speed pretty soon!

- Falls-Down-Laughing

Wow... this a cool site... I will definitly be checking the Xylophone out, I've wanted to make one for a while now!

Welcome to the family Jesse Falls-Down-Laughing

Hey Jesse,

Cool to see that you dropped in. I stumbled across your blog and You Tube channel recently and find it to be a cool distraction. Love your energy my friend!

It seems as though we are on similar paths with flutes, bar instruments, percussions and pretty much anything that makes music (noise). Right now I am working on (besides NAF's) Tongue drums, Cajons, Bongo Cajons, Bamboo Clarinet, Gourd Udu's, and thinking about building a Theremin http://www.thereminworld.com/article.asp?id=17 .

Looking forward to more from you,
Ed

Thanx heaps! **

Thanx, greybeard, FlutePrayer, Geoffrey, tenzin and Just Jim!

Just Jim - yeah, the xylo posts will be first to pop up when I start everything flowing again - will be showin' one I made for my daughter out of bamboo from the park out back of my place here in Nagoya... kinda clunky more than ringy, but eh, it's for my daughter to bash the hell out of - clunky gives parents less headaches LOL

What were ya thinkin' of makin' your xylophone keys from?

Yeah good to see you here Jesse! I wonder if I might take some of your advice and try making my own flutes someday? Did you ever make any Anasazi type flutes? Or Mojave? Cheers....Ed

Anasazi... sounds familiar... I think it means "ancient ones", iirc...

Oh, wait - yeah! Y'mean like Native South American stuff? Pan flutes and Quena (Kena) flutes and the like? Hell, yeah - funny, too... there's like a 88-94% similarity between the South American Kena and the Japanese Shakuhachi (made bunches of both)... pretty much the only diff' is in the embouchure.

Pardon my ignorance though, but what's a good example of a Mojave flute? I'm slightly lost... lol


EDIT; Not sure I've ever made mojave ones (made some diagonal ones, though - damned hard to play!), but have made Anasazi flutes - had experimented on them as well, like using a shakuhachi utaguchi on it instead of the conventional Anasazi embouchure... had some good results.

That is my biggest question... what wood makes the best keys?

The Mojave is another rim blown flute, but with a slightly different tuning. The "Anasazi" (made by the Pueblo peoples) that most of us are playing these days was modeled on some artifacts found in a cave in the first half of the 20th century. Same with the Mojave--modern makers have done replicas based upon antique flutes.

Flute maker Michael Allen is responsible for popularizing these flutes and other makers (myself included) have jumped on the band wagon.

One cool thing that I enjoy about this forum. When you mention somebody name a few times they tend to drop in. Kinda like Beetlejuice .

Carlos, Carlos, Carlos.....

Santana, Santana, Santana.....

Me waiting.....

Oh Carlooooooooooossssssssssssssss

Jesse,checkout Geoffrey's website too for some Great flutes! Anasazi,Mojave,Quenasazi,Quenajave and Xiao in addition to NAFs! http://www.earthtoneflutes.com/

Hey !! glad you received my e-mail

thank you for passing by and join us

As you see you got yourself some funs here je je je

Love your videos keep on posting

and thank you for sharing your knowledge with the world

Have fun!!

hope you pay us a visit at least a couple of times a month, if you get the time...

I have to ask this: that Dog from your avatar pictures is yours or you just took that from the web? that smiles is real or is it photoshopped? if it is real that is definitely a happy canine

Just love that picture !

Anything dense for more ringyness, is what I figure... like oak, maple, rock maple, ebony, and so on. Anything will do though, even pine, and it will ring just fine. The most important thing is that the wood is straight-grained, knot-free, and that it is *quarter-sawn*.

For the most basic of xylophone keys (that is to say, making no added scallops and scoops into the underside for extra tones and such, or for marimbas... just basic, xylophone keys), all you need to remember is 22.5% like I mention in my blog. 22.5% of each key's length from either end is where the vibratory nodes are to attach the keys to anything

Now, if you're looking to spend a heap on something huge and something you can leave in your backyard, stuff like purpleheart and teak are superb - exceedingly high silica content in the wood - done right, rings well, and due to that silica content, can be left out in any weather and will be just fine... but for the same reason, the silica, it eats the CRAP out of blades - planers, routers, whatever - y'almost need to resharpen after every pass... and after so many, you need to buy new blades and bits

I'd stay away from those woods haha

But yeah, again, any wood that is straight-grained, knot-free, and quarter-sawn - and you'll have killer-cool sounds come out of it

What kind of woods do you like??

Thanx, Buteo! Geoffrey - nice site! And... looks very familiar - have you had that up for years?? Do you remember ever hearing of an old site that did NA flutes, Kena, Japanese Shakuhachi and Chinese D'tzu flutes, called TimberwolfInstruments.com?? Like, back in '98 to about '01-ish or so?

Hiiieeee!!!! [*waves maniacally*] **

Nope, not my dog - yep, found on the web - nope, not photoshoped - yep, real smile, but looks more "human-ish" and intense due to the angle of the shot hehe ^_~

Thanks so much for that e-mail! It was quite a surprise, and has given me faith that I ain't been doin' this all for nothing - been thinkin' that no-one sees or cares, except for comments on YouTube... I get some nice comments there sometimes (now if only I can persuade those commenters to comment on my *blog*!! LOL)

THANX HEAPS!! **

Paduak is a great choice too.

Jim, considering the availability of Bamboo (to you) you should make your first from Boo. Maybe we can compare toys in Melborne in November .
Ed

I've had a website for my flutes since early 1998, but the current "look" has been out there for the last 6 years. The timberwolfinstruments.com sounds familiar, but that is far enough back that I don't trust my memory. I wouldn't be surprised if I had stumbled across it at some point searching for NAF stuff. There were not nearly as many flute sites back then, so a search didn't yield such an overwhelming number of possibilities!

Hehe... yeah, that was me and my website - at the time, I was the only one offering inlaid sandpaintings on my flutes... come to think of it, I haven't seen others do that to this very day - however, crushed stone inlay stuff, like that "Inlace" stuff that I wanna try so much, I've seen quite a bit. Gorgeous work. Saw some of your inlay work as well - killer stuff!

I still have the old domain name... gonna be putting the site up again in a few months. Got an ArtFire site up with the same name - haven't put anything in it yet... it's gonna be for new stuff that I'll test out, and if they go well, it'll go into the main TI site

So hey... Do you ever make backpacking sized NA flutes? You know, like having them be half as long, but still play the same notes as a regular-length flute? Made a couple from bamboo here, and are quite nice to play on... I can have one in my leather vest's inside pocket, pull it out and play - and they way the fingering holes are configured, it leaves superb space for beadwork, pyrography, or whatever. It's kinda nifty to play on such a compact thing and have it sound like a much larger instrument!

Hey Jesse, Would love to see some pictures of those backpacking flutes. I like to do "Pyrography" on my Cane Flutes as well. Click to view attachment Many Blessings...Robert

Happy to make you happy

It seams there is going to be a lot of fun for everybody around here I will watch and learn

Here's a quick one I did for just a hundred bucks once through mixi (kind of like a Japanese Facebook)...




You can see that the fingering holes go just about right up to the end of the flute - but the "actual end" is really about a half a foot beyond the end (mathematically).

I basically just completely closed off the end, then made a tiny hole in the center of the blockage to be less than half of the bore diameter wide, creating the mathematical illusion in the physics of the flute, and what goes on within the enclosed air chamber inertially, that the bore is actually longer than it is. This way, I can have a really short flute that sounds like it's long.

This here's obvious, and y'all I'm sure already know this here technique, so I hope I'm not insulting anyone's intelligences here... but for the sake of any and all lookers on...

Take one of those wide, postal rubber bands... stretch it up to the screen over the image (have an extra pair of hands to help with this), and mark on the band where the airstream "splitting" edge is onto the band, then the centerpoints of the holes, and the edge of the foot end of the flute in the image.

Make a half-length NA flute with the foot end closed off, then drill a tiny hole into the end about 1/4-1/2 the bore diameter wide - adjust accordingly for sound.

Stretch the marked rubber band onto the flute, so that the end mark is at the end, and the edge mark is at the edge, then transfer the fingering hole centerpoint marks from the band to the flute and make your fingering holes tiny - adjust for sound from there **

Man that is cool Jesse. I have choked some bores before to shorten a flute but never that much. Have you done one with a root end yet? Bet that would be real cool.

I love the rubber band idea too. No insult sharing, I felt kind of DUH for never trying that before .

Ed

Y'know, I actually haven't yet... not even for shakuhachi. Really itchin' to, though...

hmmmm.......

that was mind blending

can you post a video with the sound of a similar flute?

I promise to, eventually... the very next instrument vids I should do is to finish the xylophone ones, then the bamboo sax and the acoustic electric bass...

But waitaminit, I already *DO* have one up - only seconds long, though (LOL), but you can hear the notes - hold on a sec, and I'll find it...

AH! Found it - now, this particular one *is* tiny, and the hole I drilled into the blockage at the end was *over* half the bore diameter... so it's not gonna sound very deep. It sounds like a smaller-than-large flute, but being that the entire flute is less than 10" long, it could have sounded like a dime store whistle lol Okay, hereya go - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkdn9nkdYJE

Thanks for that link! Nope, can't say as I've made any Mojave ones, but am interested in trying... Anasazi I have made before, though not many... was more exploring their make, even experimenting with hybrids - like using an utaguchi, the embouchure style from a shakuhachi... worked well, iirc.

Just made an Anasazi from PVC about a half-hour ago - wanna try bamboo sometime this week

well that was very screwed up I must say LOL

I thin I will just wait for the new one LOL

very interesting place though

Yeah - was takin' a vid' with my old cell phone, sittin' it on the seat of my old bike - then it fell off LOL