PODCAST NA FLUTE LESSON #1 from FF-PC-Vol-1-art-2

from the book, Campfire Flute

This lesson should be supplemented by Lesson 1 on our corresponding podcast. Click here for our podcast download page.

What you see on the left is Tablature notation from the book, Celebrate the Native American Flute and the book Campfire Flute. We simply call them TABS. The advantage of tablature is you don't have to know beans about reading music. Each individual column shows you exactly how to play the note. This way of writing out music is very old. In fact, it was developed by musicians long before the standard Western notation we are all so familiar with appeared. Johanne Sebastian Bach wrote out his classical guitar masterpieces in tablature form because indicating the string and the fret on the guitar was a natural for tablature notation. Although somewhat different than the flute notation on the left, the principle was the same: each "note" showed the musician exactly how to play that note.

NOTE: The tablature pictured is that of the Pentatonic Scale. It's the simplest possible scale playable on the Native American flute. Many more scales are possible on the NA flute, making alll kinds of music accessible on this simple instrument. Pop, blues, sacred, jazz, classical--all are possible on the NA flute. Many of these powerful scales are covered in the book, Celebrate the Native American Flute.

Pentatonic Scale:

Before trying the rest of this lesson, first study the Pentatonic scale at the left. Play it until it becomes easy for you, and the notes flow smoothly and cleanly. Once you have that under your musical belt, proceed with the rest of the lesson below.

Noodling on the first four notes:

After you become comfortable with playing the Pentatonic scale, try noodling around with the first four notes of this scale. On the left is the Pentatonic scale, plus the octave note. Use just the noodling notes of this scale, (under the green area), to make up your own cool tunes. Don't worry about rhythm. Just play your heart. You'll be stunned at how good you'll sound with just these first four notes!

The two groups below are two distinctly different TAB groups that are used in this lesson to play a tune that sounds like what you might expect the Native American flute to sound like. Although the podcast lesson gives you three examples of how to arrange these groups to make different tunes, you can repeat these groups as many times as you like, and you can play them in any order you like. Most popular, folk, and classical music is made by laying down definite themes at the beginning of a piece. This podcast lesson shows you how to do that with just these two groups.