Native American Bamboo Flute Making

Walter ben hunt s plans.

Native american bamboo flute making.

You can carve intricate designs on the wooden surface to give your flute a more native american feel. Store prepare and cure the bamboo. The fipple or bird on these flutes see photo below is made of curved bamboo to give the flute a streamlined outer edge making easy to pop into a bag or backpack. With this table in mind look at your bamboo how thick is it on the outside.

Remove the tape and using sandpaper make the holes smooth. These two pages provided the starting point for many flute makers of the early 1970s. It is tied on with elastic cord usually red or black with beads attached. This page provides some plans for making native american flutes.

Plans for making native american flutes. Position and drill the sound holes. Bore 6 more holes on the other plane of the flute. Top to bottom 1 7 16 inches.

Make and put in the mouthpiece. You should recall the table with measurements for each key bore diameter and width of the sound chambers. They were published by walter ben hunt 1888 1970 in and later in. Partly due to the simplicity of the plant itself bamboo instruments are extremely easy to make and make well at that.

Work with the bore shaping sanding sealing and oiling. Below you will find several items both helpful to making your own native american flutes as well as great example flutes to use as a starter into the understanding of how they are made. Select and harvest the bamboo. Bore diameter and length is available in this article.

Over time various cultures have developed a variety of bamboo flutes pipes whistles and general noisemakers. Below is a picture of an ancient territories native american style flute that i have cut in half lengthwise. When making a bamboo flute in native american style the first thing to do is to define the key we want. Marking out the positions for the finger holes.