Another great link for this scale is on Flutetree.
What is the 'blues scale' you might ask? Well if you've ever heard any blues music or even some modern rock or pop music, it's likely that you've heard the blues scale. It's simply the primary collection of notes used to create the melody lines in a blues song. The basic idea is that once you know this scale, you can mix these notes in any order and they'll all sound good together, and they'll sound like the blues.
Now if you are unfamiliar with basic blues progression, I found some MP3 music tracks online that you can download and play to hear the guitar, bass guitar and drums playing several blues progressions. Listen to these tracks a couple of times and then use the blues scale to try to play along with the backing instruments.Here are the MP3 files which you can download and play in as backing tracks:
Use an Em or Am flute for this song: Blues Shuffle in Em
Use an Am or an Em flute for this song: Funky Blues in Am
Use a Gm flute for this song: Jazzy Blues in Gm
To view the webpage and related music for these tracks follow this link.
It gets even more fun if you can find a guitarist or piano player who can play some basic blues. If the other musician can tell what fundamental chord progression they are playing in, you should be able to select an appropriate flute. Or conversely, if you have a Gm flute, then ask the musicians to play a blues riff in Gm.
Experiment and have fun with this. Please post a comment if you found this fun, or if you happen to find other, similar free blues tracks on the internet.
.
The awesome element to this workshop was that these 6 folks had a personal relationship with Dr. Richard Payne and they recounted some of their favorite memories about Doc Payne for those of us who didn't get the chance to met him while he was alive. If you're not familiar with Doc Payne and his contribution to the preservation of the Native American style flute, then I highly recommend that you get a copy of either "Songkeepers" or the "Toubat" video. The songkeepers video is a standard part of all of my Beginners Classes. Doc Payne had the most extensive collection of World flutes, including the largest collection of Native American style flutes. When he passed away, his collection was sold at auction and this is where our story starts:
Michael Graham Allen recounted his memories of Doc Payne and the painstaking measurements of which he took of some of Doc's historical flutes. Michael had a replica of the "Pima flute" in Doc's collection and he pulled it out to show the audience. It was then that our very own Frankie Sierra pulled out the orignal Pima flute which Frankie had purchased at the auction. Here's a picture of Michael playing the replica Pima flute:
Julia and Robert Gatliff then talked about some of their experiences at Doc's house. They were fortunate to live in the same town as Doc Payne, so they had one of the closest relationships to Doc. They told about the estate sale and how Robert rescued an important flute from the "pity pile" of inexpensive flutes. They were also present at the flute auction, and talked about how this brought closure for them on Doc's passing.
Finally, Jeff Calavan recounted his story of meeting Doc Payne for the first time and Jeff's filming of the Toubat video, which is a story of Doc life. Jeff says that a DVD version is coming out some with additional footage not on the original video.
Everyone recounted the colorful personality which was Doc Payne, his flutes and his influence on the Native American Flute today.
I hope that these folks and others will continue to have this panel discussion about Doc Payne at every future INAFA event. Doc's flutes are all over the world now, hopefully being played and passed around. I hope that we get to see many of them in the future.
Here's a picture of one of Xaviers statue or vessel flutes. It's like a ocarina, only deeper. You can see more examples on Xaviers website:
This face is from the fire flute:
Geoffrey Ellis shows off the signature flute which will be auctioned off on the 'soon to open' FlutePortal.com (check it out in a few week, I'll be blogging about it when it goes live):
R.Carlos Nakia headlined the evening with a variety of flutes:
R. Carlos Nakai plays a song on a nose flute flute:
R. Carlos Nakia on stage during his performance:
Here's (left to right) Jeff Ball, Ken Light and Mark Holland:
Here's Will Clipman playing a Rod Kendall Udu:
Here's (left to right) Peter Phippen, Gary Stroutsos, R. Carlos Nakai, Jeff Ball, Hovia Edwards, Mark Holland and Ken Light:
Dan Ricketts (right) found a moment to chat with Tom Stewart (left) of Stellar Flutes.
Here's a close up of Xavier's "Death Flute"
I had the chance to get to know Leonard McGann (left):
Lee Johnson suprised us all with a visit, here's a reunion picture of (left to right) Dave Loo, Lee Johnson, Janet Phares and Mike Oitzman.
The next workshop that I attended was by RuthiE Nielen and Jan Rice on "Living With Dying Expressively, Using the Flute in Hospice and in Hospitals". After my experience of last night, visiting the VA Hospice unit, this was a very touching presentation. I especially enjoyed RuthiE's energy and she related stories about her experience with playing music for hospice.
After lunch came one of the workshop that I had personally been waiting for, Ash Dargen presentation on the Didjeridoo. Ash is a great storyteller, a great showman and a great presenter. He entertained us with many stories and he demonstrated Didj technics:
Here's a picture of our very own Dawn King, as a Ash uses her to demonstrate a technique:
After the INAFA presentation, came the real fun as several of us had contacted Ash for a private Didj lesson:
Here's picture of me and Ash after the lesson, I am smiling because I can now circular breathe with the best of them...
