I have been connecting people to flutes for 20 years. It has been quite an interesting and life-changing journey. One of the things I get asked the most is how to choose a flute. I have decided to create a series of articles and blog posts discussing this issue. Today I am starting with questions you can ask yourself about how you would like to connect to your flute.

Many people choose their first flute based on the lovely, soothing deep sounds that just reach in and touch your soul and order one online only to find out that it is too big for their hands to comfortably hold for a first flute. While the questions below will give you some ideas about selecting a key of flute, it is also very important to understand how the size  and length of a flute will affect your ability to produce quality sounds while you are learning. 

Watch for my next article or blog post that talks about choosing your first flute. If you need more help reach out via text or phone to Terry @780-913-2036 or email [email protected]. 


Which Flute Is Right for You?
Consider the questions below
Which sound attracts you most?

• Bright and playful
• Warm and balanced
• Deep and emotional
• Very deep and powerfuL               
• How comfortable are you with breath control?
• Just starting
• Some experience
• Very comfortable
• What style of music do you imagine playing?
• Light melodies
• Storytelling or song-like
• Meditative and emotional
• Soundscapes and ceremonial

Your Match
Mostly first answers → High flute
Mostly second answers → Mid flute (D or E recommended)
Mostly third answers → Low flute
Mostly fourth answers → Bass flute

There are many more factors that can impact choosing your first flute. The questions are simply a guide and the flute suggested by these answers may be very different than the flute you actually choose.. Watch for more articles and information on this topic.

A moment captured in time at the my first annual Music in the Trees Performance in September, 2024. I invited one of my guests up to join me with her ukulele. She was rocking some great chords and I jumped in with my beautiful A minor flute and we had a fun time sharing a spontaneous moment of musical creation. 20 years ago, I had no idea that I would ever create music and then my first flute arrived as a Christmas present from my husband. Truly a life changing experience that over time grew into a great love of improvising music with people and another great love of teaching and guiding people in playing their Native American Style flutes. 

These are one of those moments where it was just pure fun and everyone enjoyed it. So I hope you enjoy this.

In this video, I share how I stumbled into creating my very first song, Sundance. 

• The very first reason is a flute circle is really fun. And it just gets better from there.
• If you are a beginner, come to a flute circle! It's a great place to learn more and meet new friends with a shared passion.

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• Flutes, flutes and more flutes. You will see lots more flutes and learn more about flute makers
• Sharing the journey.  Everyone is a beginner at something at sometime. I have been playing these flutes for many years and still consider myself a beginner because the flutes continue to teach me every time I play.
• Learning new techniques
• Sharing some of the fun things  you are learning
• Playing along with others or to back tracks 
• Flute circles are a wonderful, joyful way to learn more about playing.
• Very cool people come to Flute Circles

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I am hosting the Gone Fluting Flute Circle,
on Sunday, February 9th from 2 to 4 pm at my home in Spruce Grove.

If you need the address PM, phone or text at 780-913-2036 or email: [email protected]

I also have a few flute related items such as bags and stands for people to check out and buy.

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As owner of Peaceful Spirit Flutes and having sold over 1000 flutes, I have witnessed many amazing stories from the people I meet. I have begun to understand the powerful call of the flutes, The flute being discussed in the video below took an amazing journey before arriving in the hands of Lucy, It started when I ordered a test flute from a maker in Missouri. It was a purpleheart F#. I liked it and had planned on keeping it for myself however I did want to find out how people would respond to this flute, I took it to a market in Sydney, BC, That night, Lucy visited my booth and after a great deal of deliberation chose that flute to purchase. It made its way from Missouri to Nanaimo where it was to connect with the person from Salt Lake City Utah. I believe that she was meant to be the owner of that lovely flute. It is one of the experiences that taught me that I am a connector of flutes to people who are answering the call of the flutes.  

The story below also has a few more interesting details so I encourage you to take a few minutes to watch the story unfold. It includes more information about Lucy's journey as she describes how the flute helped her breath through a challenging injury.

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Breath and Inspiration by Terry Mack
 
A Native American flute is but a simple hollowed out wooden tube with a hole to blow into, 6 holes to cover and a little wooden block sitting atop the flute. With your fingers and your breath, you can create magical sounds releasing the music that comes from your own soul.

Just the feeling of a beautiful flute in your hand inspires you to want to play wonderful sounds with it. And if you are like me, you want to do that right away. Slow down for a minute. Playing the flute involves connecting with your breath while mastering the art of covering and uncovering the holes producing sound that you find pleasing.

A first-time flute player with no other wind instrument playing experience (and even a few who have played other types of wind instruments) pick up the flute and randomly cover and uncover the holes trying to find out how the flute makes sound. This produces wildly random and often dissonant sounds.  Anytime you pick up a flute, cover holes and blow into it you are playing the flute. The flute is making the sounds you are asking it to make with your finger movements and your breath. They are just not the melodious sounds that you want to hear yet.  These are the sounds that you can learn to control with practice, once you have spent time getting to know your flute.


Inspiration!.
To breathe in!
To animate or take action.
Your breath inspires the flute to sound. Your breathe inspires you to be present and aware of how it impacts the sounds you and the flute will create.
In approaching your flute, remember your breath.
Before playing, breathe in and breathe out a few times to slow yourself down and release the tension of the moment. Let the breathing open you to your inner spirit.
Move your fingers slowly over the holes, letting the sounds you are producing with your breath catch up to the fingering the holes of the flute, so the sound can be heard.
Take your time and get to know how your breath, covering the holes and producing the sounds feels. Let yourself connect to that process and soon your will find your way into your own beautiful sound through the flute.
One of the best ways to create good sounds on your flute is to simply go slowly and play each note for at least a count of ten. This lets you begin to hear the subtleties and variations that can happen in playing each note and how your breathing can impact the sound.
A hand crafted Native American Flute is a wonderful combination of the spirit of the tree, the spirit of the maker and your spirit as the player. The tree has taken time to grow. The flute maker honors the wood and the tree taking time to carefully construct the flute. And now you as a flute player, can honor the flute with your breath, creating and sending forth a beautifully interconnected exhalation of sounds --- the breath of life. I love to think of it as capturing the mysterious.

Terry Mack, Copyright, 2018

 

​What’s after the basic scale?  
By Terry Mack, Intuitive Player of the Native American Style Flute

Explore, explore and explore more to see, hear and feel how the sounds seem to work together.


​Playing a flute has a lot to do with controlling your breath and controlling your fingering of the holes. My experience with newer players is they often want to go fast before they have mastered slow and they take on playing too many notes and get lost along the way as the musical and muscle memory is just developing.


​Experiment with 3 to 4 notes:

• Play them in different sequences
• Play them slow
• Play them fast
• Play them short and choppy
• Play them smooth and flowing
• Mix up long slow notes with short choppy notes
• Play them like you are asking a question or having a conversation
• End a note with an exclamation point
• End a note with a sigh
• See if you can the ending of a note to just hang in the air and pause a bit longer before you start the next note
• See if you can make them sound happy or sad or any other emotion you can think of.
• Start with the softest breath you can on each of the notes and then push more breath through to go past the sweet spot and make the sound crack
• Lift your fingers off the holes two or three at a time

When you play around with the tips I suggest you will begin to connect more intimately with how you and the flute produce these beautiful sounds and begin to add more texture and colour to the sounds and songs you are creating.