Playing The Native American Style Love Flute
You do not need any technical knowledge about music or sound dynamics in order to play and enjoy your Native American Style flute. However, as you progress deeper into your playing you may want to broaden your knowledge.
The Love flute, though a simple instrument, opens the door of the musical world. In that world are all kinds of new experiences and lots of new information.
In order to help you better understand this world I am including a few guidlines and a complete Tutorial.
Native American Style Flute Keys
The left image shows you a graphic representation of the many flute keys that Native American style flutes come in.
The key of the flute is shown in the far left hand column. To its right in ascending order are the different notes that can be played on that particular Love flute. The notes in red type are the notes of the mode one pentatonic scale for that flute. These notes can be played without using half holing and cross fingering. For more information on pentatonic scales go to Pentatonic Scales. These red notes are all you need to know in order to make beautiful music on your Native American style flute. The notes in black are the other notes of the chromatic scale that can be obtained by cross fingering and in the case of the first two ascending notes half holing. These are the notes that you may eventually want to explore in time as you go deeper into your instrument and your music.
At the bottom of each column of the chart you see a representation of a Native American style flute and its six tone holes. This is a fingering chart for your Love flute. The bottom hole in the diagram is the lowest hole on your flute. A solid black circle indicates a closed hole. A half blackened circle indicates a half open hole. A circle with a white center indicates an open hole. Below the flutes are numbers for these notes. Twelve notes make a complete chromatic scale. The notes in spaces 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12 make up a major, or typical do re mi scale for each flute key.
I know for those of you without any previous musical experience this looks a bit confusing but don’t be intimidated. You don’t need to know this stuff to make beautiful music with your Native American style flute.
Flute Key Compatibility
Here is a chart which shows which flute key will sound good when played with another Love flute or instrument tuned to a different key. Just follow the lines from one key to the keys at the other end of the line. For example, take A at the top of the diagram. It is connected to F#, E, D and C. These are the flutes the A flute will sound good with.