Mother Earth News has two articles
( 1 and 2 )
about making bamboo
flutes
with a 9-hole fingering system, invented
by me, that lets a musician play three extra
notes (3-flat, 4-sharp, 7-flat) which 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 and high octaves.
I.O.U. — Eventually, maybe in late-2012, I'll write a summary (here) of the two articles.
These articles were written in 1982 by Marc
Bristol (the founder and still the
editor of Blue
Suede News) based on information provided by me. However, one
thing I told Marc, but it's not in what he wrote, is that much of what
I know about
making bamboo flutes was learned from Joe Kasik of Springfield, Oregon — who sold
flutes with 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 scenic location
with the Mackenzie River flowing outside their back door.
Making flutes, which was a 3-month project during a break between
my
graduate studies at UW-West (in Seattle) and UW-Midwest (in Madison),
was
one of my first major experiences in using design process,
which is related to scientific method and is described in a website,
Using Design Process for Problem Solving and Education
which has a page about this flute project - search for "flu".
Older versions are in this website, beginning with
An
Introduction to Design Method
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)