How to Make
BAMBOO FLUTES
Making bamboo flutes was a 3-month project during a break between
my
graduate studies at UW-West (in Seattle) and UW-Midwest (in Madison).
This was
one of my first major experiences in using a design-thinking process
that is related to scientific method, and is described in my website —
Using Design-Thinking Process for Problem Solving and Education — which
includes a page about this flute project (plus "Performance and/or Learning").
Based on interviews of me by the author, Mark Bristol,
Mother Earth News had two articles
( 1 and 2 )
about making bamboo
flutes
with a 9-hole fingering system, invented
by me, letting a musician play three extra
notes (3-flat, 4-sharp, 7-flat) that cannot be played on a traditional 6-hole
bamboo flute,
plus my strategy (by modifying the interior shape of the flute) for tuning the
low & high octave.
{ and here are photo-scans of the original articles with all of the diagrams }
I.O.U. — Later, maybe in summer-2018, I'll write an outline (here) of the two articles.
These articles were written in 1982 by Marc
Bristol (the founder and still editor
of Blue
Suede News) based on information provided by me. However, one thing I told
Marc, but it didn't appear in the published article, is that much of what
I know about
making bamboo flutes (*) was learned from Joe Kasik of Springfield, Oregon — who sold
flutes with very high quality (musically & artistically) at the Saturday
Market
in Eugene —
at the market (answering questions one at a time) and also (for in-depth explanations
plus “showing me how”) one day when I drove to the house where he and his wife lived
in a beautiful scenic location
with the Mackenzie River flowing outside their back door.
{* But some ideas, including the 9-hole fingering system, are my own. }
also - The Science of Music (and other Arts)
for ideas about
making music with a flute or
another instrument, or by singing or whistling,
Musical Improvisation (creativity + music
theory)