ANCIENT TERRITORIES FLUTE
A look at a Native
American flute
made by John Stillwell
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Ancient
Territories flute The
number of Native American style flute makers is
growing everyday. It's getting harder and harder to
find flutes that are different enough and also well
made to fork over the money for another flute.
However these makers are out there -which is good
for NAF enthusiasts but bad for bank balances- and
one of these is John Stillwell of Ancient
Territories flutes. I
first met John at the debut meeting of the Inland
Empire Flute Circle and it was obvious that he was
doing things that I had never seen before. At that
time all of his flutes had end caps made of
multiple layers of contrasting colored wood in a
distinctive chevron pattern. The workmanship was
first rate. Turns out John has a background in
cabeint making so he knows how to work with wood.
The other difference was that instead of cutting
his blanks on the horizonal he cuts most of his on
the vertical so that the seam runs through the
finger holes and sound holes. The final touch was
that the flutes flaired slightly on the top making
for a subtile flatting of the finger board, the top
of the flute where the finger holes are. All
of this made for a very unusual looking flute. They
also sounded good too and since that time John has
constantly experimented to make his flutes even
better. For
good or for bad many flute makers stop
experimenting once they get a template that works
for them. For many makers this is not a problem
once they get a good sounding flute. John however
seems to be driven to strive for the next level of
his craft. He
has experimented with lenghtening the slow air
chamber (I personally call the SAC the High
Pressure Chamber as it's where the back pressure
builds up). He also has made flutes with copper
tubing in them that have a drain opening on the
bottom of the flute to prevent watering out. Others
have tried similar designs as well, but this is
very cutting edge still. Like
most makers, John's flutes have gotten better with
time. He recently asked me to try out a flute in
the key of A and this is the flute we're going to
be looking at. The
is flute 21" inches long with a 7/8" inch bore. The
flute is made from Maple and Zebra wood with a
turquoise disc that holds the leather tie. Although
not visible in any of these images this flute has
the slightly flatter top finger board. John also
does a slight wedge on the bottom end of his
flutes. Other makers do this too, the most dramatic
being Laughing Crow flutes. This
flute is unlike any other I own in that it is made
up of four quarters of wood. If you look closely at
the photo above and the one below you'll see there
is both a horizonal and vertical seam. John does
this by gluing two pieces together making two
halves and then the flute is constructed just like
any other flute. Of course with John's flutes there
still another twist, as mentioned earler the main
seam is on the vertical and runs through the finger
holes. In
the image above and below you can clearly see the
seam on the vertical running through the finger
holes. Note
the detail and fine craftmanship in the placement
of the grain on the flute and block. The block
itself is made up of three pieces of onlayed
wood. Unlike
some of John's flutes this one is lacking the
muliple wood end caps and also doesn't have any
special non-wetting-out tubing that some of his
special flutes have. What it does have is a bright,
clear sound. The sound is very clean and crisp and
can play long gentle legato passages yet still
handle hard core double and tripple touguing
techniques. While testing it out in my studio it
easily handled everything I threw at it. Listen
to a sample of this flute I
recently made a point to playing an improvisation
on this flute during a performance last month. The
resulting song is called Earth Solitude and is the
most recent free MP3 download avaible to members of
my E-mailing List. If you're a member please check
the Member's Section on my website
www.scottaugust.com. If you're not a member you
can
sign
up here.
If
you want to read past article of other flutes and
their makers visit the Echoes
From The Road
section located on the More
Stuff
page. You can also find a Makers
page
there too with their contact information. Those
makers that have been profiled have a link next to
their name. We've looked at a lot of skilled and
talented makers with more to come.
You
can find an index of all the
articles
HERE DO
YOU NEED A FLUTE? You
can also find a list of makers
who's flutes I play on my web site. MORE
INFORMATION ABOUT THE NATIVE AMERICAN FLUTE
OTHER
POSTS TO CHECK OUT
How
to Buy a NAF, part
1
How
to Buy a NAF, part
2
How
to care for your
NAF
Playing
your first NAF
scale
Strengthening
your Fingers
Playing
from the Heart
Part-1
Playing
from the Heart
Part-2
Recording
your NAF, basic, easy Home Studio set
up
NEW
Starting
your Own Music Label part
1
NEW
The
Basic Scale of the Anasazi Flute
Visit the
Cedar
Mesa Music
Store.
Members of my
E-Mailing
list
get a 10% discount on all flutes we
sell.
NAF
History and Construction
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Recordings
by
Scott
August
