Time for some chuckles...

Felt a good dash of humor was in order for today (well, every day!). Sort of a mini "Best Of" from friends' emails the past couple of weeks that made me laugh. Enjoy!
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"BUT OFFICER, I......"

A police officer pulls over a speeding car. The officer says, ' I clocked you at 80 miles per hour, sir.'

The driver says, 'Gee, officer, I had it on cruise control at 60; perhaps your radar gun needs calibrating. '

Not looking up from her knitting the wife says: 'Now don't be silly, dear--you know that this car doesn't have cruise control.'

As the officer writes out the ticket, the driver looks over at his wife and growls, 'Can't you please keep your mouth shut for once?'

The wife smiles demurely and says, 'You should be thankful your radar detector went off when it did.'

As the officer makes out the second ticket for the illegal radar detector unit, the man glowers at his wife and says through clenched teeth, 'Woman, can't you keep your mouth shut?'

The officer frowns and says, 'And I notice that you're not wearing your seat belt, sir. That's an automatic $75 fine.'

The driver says, 'Yeah, well, you see, officer, I had it on, but I took it off when you pulled me over so that I could get my license out of my back pocket.'

The wife says, 'Now, dear, you know very well that you didn't have your seat belt on. You never wear your seat belt when you're driving.'

And as the police officer is writing out the third ticket, the driver turns to his wife and barks, 'WHY DON'T YOU PLEASE SHUT UP??'

The officer looks over at the woman and asks, 'Does your husband always talk to you this way, Ma'am?'

'Only when he's been drinking.'

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"Play dead" pup...

Mommy's little helper...

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TYPE CAREFULLY!

A Minneapolis couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during a particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier.

Because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel schedules. So, the husband left Minnesota and flew to Florida on Thursday, with his wife flying down the following day.

The husband checked into the hotel. There was a computer in the hotel lobby, so he decided to send an email to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her email address, and without realizing his error, sent the email.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston , a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. He was a minister who was called "Home" following a heart attack.

The widow decided to check her email expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she screamed and fainted.

The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:

To: My Loving Wife

Subject: I've Arrived

Date: January 16 , 2008

I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send emails to your loved ones. I've just arrived and have been checked in.

I've seen that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then!!!! Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.

P. S. Sure is hot down here!!!!

Letting go...

One of the most important states of being in creating a peaceful, harmonious life is practicing 'detachment'. True detachment. It doesn't mean being a hermit and cutting yourself off from everyone...it means not letting people, objects, feelings become so 'attached' to you, mentally, that they meld with your sense of identity...that any idea of 'losing' that 'attachment' will somehow 'take away' from who you are...

Easier said than done, I know. Masters know the simple beauty and truth in it because they practice it. I think we've all heard/read the 'love' verse that says if you love something set it free...that's the idea, anyway. And so I come to those questions from time to time with certain flutes. I am often asked, "Have you ever sold any flutes you wish you'd kept?" The honest answer is 'yes', but knowing it's a necessary 'step' since the beauty and medicine of this sacred instrument needs to be shared and spread around, not hoarded. OK, and bills need to be paid, who's kidding whom!

I had been corresponding with a prospective 'parent' over particular flutes and keys, getting a feel for what they were looking for...and as is oft the case, it gets into matters of Spirit and the Heart. There's a lot of 'gut feeling' involved, messages from beyond...a lot gets 'spoken' without ever being written. It's a neat thing, really...quite vibrant. I say 'parent' as I view my flutes as my 'kids', so I refer to them as being adopted, not sold. They're much more than pieces of wood that play sweet music.

When I had completed the (low E-flat) Praying Eagle flute below, I knew it was a keeper. Oh, it was offered to a select few people that ultimately passed on it...it is one of the most amazing playing flutes, too, with an upper register that can be cleanly played with the lightest of breaths...for experienced flute players with superior breath control, this instrument will play just about anything any way. How could I offer it for adoption now?

Well, I did. It's Iowa-bound as I type, along with a couple of other siblings. Deep down I know there will be other really great flutes that will be created, and I'll cross that dilemma-bridge all over again. Actually, I already am with my first two Verdi-tuned flutes, the low E and branch flute from an earlier blog post. I am not releasing those at this time, and may not...they will let me know if and when there is such a time to move on. The Praying Eagle did.

(click on pics to enlarge)



I'm applying for membership in the prestigious Southern Highlands Craft Guild, and should I make it to Stage 2 I will need to deliver 2 flutes for their close scrutiny...the Eagle was to be one of them, so I had to tell myself to get my rear in gear and crank out a couple of real beauties should I need them for a summer drop-off. I could recreate the eagle, but the natural piece of Ironwood it's sitting on is most unique and helps 'make' the look complete...I'd have to search really hard to find something that would work as well.

One of the other siblings traveling with it is a flute that I've had since last spring or summer. It's a true North Carolina flute made from figured Cherry from Asheville and a block and end cap of Ambrosia Maple from Rowan County north of Charlotte. It was a nice playing low E...pretty to look at, pretty sounding, but no one went for it. Because this new 'parent' was looking originally for low D/E flutes, I pulled those flutes and put them through their paces. I thought the others were flat, but what it was was that this next flute was actually a tad sharp.

Long story short, I had an "aHA!" moment and shifted the flute into a Verdi-tuned F a few weeks ago. It's yet another story of something 'magical' that defies quantifiable description as that flute exploded in personality and playability with it's new 'voice'. It's bouncy and bright and delightfully responsive. All I can do is smile since I can't explain it.





The Ambrosia Maple was gifted to me by a fellow flute-maker Mark...it was this hefty rectangular chunk that I decided to cross-cut into pieces for blocks and caps, and it came out with these wonderfully wild designs. Part of the joy of woodworking!

The third of the Three Amigos is one of my specialty flutes, a high F# with an extended slow-air chamber. The body is Black Limba (Africa), a wood known as a great 'tonal' wood and used in many acoustic instruments for its resonance properties. The flat-bottomed design ("Half-Pipe") allows for a lot more variation in finger hole diameter and placement than a round-bore high F#. A beginner player would have a bit longer adjustment period to get used to the odd finger hole pattern, but even with my big paws I can toodle along quickly with it, as tight as they are.


In the above pic, the mouthpiece would be to the left and the 'foot' end to the right. This is for those who play left-over-right, which is the vast majority of players...in flute-making, a hole is placed 'x' distance from the sound hole, or at least the dot for the hole. If you were to draw a line perpendicular to the barrel at a particular dot, that represents the line on which the hole can be dropped and still play the same note. I have developed the above pattern after a lot of trial and error and playing time, and it's a pretty ergonometric design, very comfortable and natural. If I were to put all the holes in one line, they would be way too close together to play...fingers wouldn't fit tightly enough to prevent air leaks at the holes.

Now to the drawing board for today. Lots of ideas on paper that I need to translate into wood, once I decide on the particulars. The weather continues to be user-friendly, for which I am thankful!

Mo' Wildflowers...

From early spring to flat-out summer-like temperatures, that's what happened last week. Thankful for all the fill-in work of late, but, honestly, glad for a little break. The wildflowers are bustin' out everywhere and I couldn't help but post more pics. Same ol' 'click to enlarge', too.

The trillium are just now starting to spread out, both the Grandiflora large-flowered one as well as the white variety of Wake Robin. With their distinctively broad leaves, myriad shafts of sunlight, and neat rocks, it's a peaceful playground in which to just sit and soak it all in...

I also like trying different camera angles...easy to get into the rut of shooting something the same way everytime, but with the trillium they offer unique tri-forms in their designs...



This Star Chickweed bloom is about as big as my pinkie fingernail, this one just beginning to open...

...and this one fully so....

The Canada Violet is one of the larger violet blooms right now...the vast majority of early spring flowers are white, but as you'll see there are exceptions...

(Close-up of Canada Violet)

In start contrast to the predominant 'whites' is this lavendar Dwarf Larkspur that was just coming out and not yet fully open....

No blooms yet on this new Solomon's Seal...

Fiddlehead ferns that are fast shooting up look like creatures arising from some botanical lagoon, don't they?


The Large-flowered Bellwort has this limpy quality to it that, if you didn't know better, would think it was low on turgor pressure and in need of water fast! Alas, that's how this droopy yellow beauty grows...

The Smooth Yellow Violets have been out a while, now making way for more Canada (white) and Wood (purple) violets to take over...

Blue Cohosh may not be the most prolific flower or plant, but it is touted as having strong medicinal properties related to female 'cycles' as well as relieving cramps and pains from childbirthing. It has many other common names like blue ginseng, yellow ginseng, squaw root, etc. Though similar in name, it isn't related to Black Cohosh, which is also purported to have the same type of herbal qualities...


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Mailing off some special 'kids' today...glad not to be going into my old shift for a third week, that's for sure! Need to milk this warm, quiet weather while I have the energy!

"Fried Fridays: It's All In The Family"

There are many euphemisms out there for families…there’s one in the Christian community that says “The family that prays together stays together”….and there is the old saying that ”blood is thicker than water” when referring to people sticking with relatives and blood/kin through thick and thin. We believe it to be so. We honor it. We follow it.

Our society prides itself on the ‘family unit’ and heterosexual relationships. Given the omnipresent “on the go” nature of our society, many work hard to do things as a family, even something as simple as having dinner together. Not everyone succeeds at accomplishing the goal of ‘quality family time’, but at least many are trying….

DATELINE: NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Ah, the Big Apple. One of those cities that never sleeps. One of those cities that you wonder howthehell do you eek out a living with the exorbitant cost of living, that kind of place. In this case, it was a couple that was going to become a ‘unit’, though at this report they were not yet married. No biggee…they obviously liked being together a lot, enough to have already had kids.

Kids that are able to walk and talk and do their own homework is one thing. Kids that are either still in diapers or only recently nearing kindergarten is another. Still, some work hard to keep the flock in the same fold, and they should be commended.

Or not.

It is a natural development that when the economy is so dreadfully lousy that some look for easy ways out. Lotteries. Gambling. Working multiple jobs.

Or turning to thievery.

And so a NYC man and an accomplice did just that, turned to the ol’ breaking-and-entering underworld to get the goods and money they need to support their families. Their intent does not justify their actions, of course, nor will it ever do so. Still, they have their families on their mind, front and center.

That’s why they went along for the ride.

Yep, it seems this unnamed fellow and his cohort would drive around in the blue family minivan and scope out places to rob…well, more like his girlfriend would do the driving while they scoped everything out. Not to leave anyone out, the 5-month old toddler and 4 year-old tyke went along for the ride, strapped in their car seats.

Well, uh….at least they had car seats. Suffice it to say the family unit hit a major snag trying to be together. Observant neighbors put two and two together and let the police know so they could set up their 'nab'.

You know what they say….

“The Family that steals together wheels together."

Sad but true... and totally 'fried'...

Enjoy the summer-like weather this weekend!!!

Them young'uns!

Taking a writing break to share recent pictures of my little niece and nephew, Ellen and William. Because friends and relatives read this blog from time to time, I like passing on family pics of my brother's and his wife's twins when he sends some (pics, not twins!)...they grow like weeds when they're young, don't they? Click on any pic to enlarge...

Good ol' Ellie Sue and Willie Boo are growing fast, and if I didn't know better I'd say Willie Boo has the makings for a Native American flute player - check out the left-over-right hand staggering around a cylinder of sorts...yep, I'm thinkin' "minor pentatonic" before too long...

From my barbershop quartet days I remember how much fun it was to sing "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" with this transition to an upbeat doo-wop version. Looks like Ellen likes it to, at least the bubbles part!

Been a cold, long winter for the clan in Boston, and I know they've been loving the warmer temperatures recently. This is my brother with a big grin on his face, which couldn't have been too far the moment his and my alma mater, UNC-Chapel Hill, brought home the NCAA basketball bacon!

Hear my brother say, "GO HEELS!"
Hear my niece say, "DAHHBINKEEDAHH!"

Hey, Willie Boo! While you think about which crayon to use, take a hint from Uncle Bob:
COLOR OUTSIDE THE LINES!!!!
It's the only way to live Life!!!!


William having a ball...


Enjoy the day and don't blow away here in the Carolinas! More flute stuff coming tomorrow!

"By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea..."

Ah, my good ol' barbershop days...hearing in my head the Cincinatti Kids quartet singing the 'title' song on a CD of theirs...

Well, my mid-F# "Sea Flute" (made from spalted, quartersawn Sycamore) is finished. I blogged about it recently on how the key shift left me with a predicament, where I had to cut a perfectly good flute and make some critical adjustments for a customer. In that blog I had not talked about the block or shown it (because it wasn't completed!)...a neat creation on how it came about.

I'm glad I opted for the turquoise bird inlay at the flute 'foot'...from the older post you may remember the bottom was too thin for a band inlay all the way around due to oversanding of the tuning hole I had to remove. I'm pleased with it's look and balance.

For the block, a seagull of sorts was requested. At first I was thinking a simple shape that maybe was painted in the motif of a gull...and, typical of how I approach a lot of what I do with my art, I started going to town. I used a general but more 'involved' design I'd used on that stunning piece of Cocobolo with the head-down Eagle (prior post), and I figured I'd paint it like a gull.

The only problem was that as I went to research pictures of gulls, there are myriad pattern and coloration variations...so I picked one and began painting. I hated it. OK, hate is a little strong, but I knew that wasn't going to satisfy my 'vision', and so I took the wood burning pen and roughly put in feathers and such. I tried to realistically paint it again. Nope. Wasn't working either...in fact, the burning lines made painting much harder on that small surface...and then it hit me.

I'd done it before on other pieces of art and flutes...you paint something and then 'distress' it by taking fine sandpaper and lightly going over the piece, letting some bare wood show through and ending up with a piece that looks folk-artish and weathered...and what is more weathered than things exposed to the salty sea air? Once I did that, I really really liked the look of it. While the flute has a gloss finish, I opted for a satin finish for the gull, as it 'fit in' better. Too, where the lace is wrapped, I left the wood wavy to mimic beach sand (though little is visible with the lace in place)...

(click on pics to enlarge)

Now I wait to simply hear back, since any custom order client has the opportunity to say yay or nay. By the way, did you hear about the love affair at sea? A classic case of 'buoy' meeting 'gull'...

A few early wildflowers...

Wildflowers have been showing their stuff recently, and I thought I'd share some plinks I took last Saturday in the beautiful warm sunshine. First up is a series of pictures of Bloodroot, a flower that closes by night and opens by day. The plant got it's name from the reddish dyes Native Americans extracted from its roots, fyi.

(click on pics to enlarge)






Cut-leaved Toothwort is most easily identified by its unique leaf appearance, hence "cut leaf"...


From the Land of Lilliput comes Spring Beauty, this tiny one just opening up...


Squirrel Corn joined the White Flower Parade, as well
(looks a lot like a white Bleeding Heart bloom)...


The anemone varietals are fast on their way in bloom...



...and the trillium soon will be....

First, there was Rin-Tin-Tin....
now there's a new sheriff in town.....



RIN-TIN-MERCY!

"Fried Fridays: Fresh and Hot in 30 minutes..."

"Wow, this economy sure is bad," I say.

"How bad is it?" you ask.

"It's so bad I've seen unemployed PhD's drive cabs and deliver pizzas just to put some food on the table," which is true for many people right now.

The Charlotte region has had a number of pizza robberies in the news lately, violent ones, too. It's not an easy job, and it's clearly not always a safe job. Thugs and miscreants seem to be a dime a dozen out there...or in there...

DATELINE: CONOVER, NC

What were they thinking....

Oh, I forgot...they weren't.

Two Domino's employees gave a whole new meaning to a fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less.

Brainless Contestant #1: Kristy Hammonds, 31, from Taylorsville, NC
Brainless Contestant #2: Michael Antony Setzer, 32, from Conover, NC

These lucky contestants won an all-expense paid trip to the Catawba County jail, paid for by you and me. Their homemade YouTube video won top honors among the over-1 million viewers for "Most Vile, Stupid, Disgusting, and Disgraceful Acts Possible" documentary work. Police authorities and Domino's management seconded that vote of confidence and delivered the winners' notifications posthaste.

Let me say that among the shocking, head-scratching things here is that these two are in their early THIRTIES, not teenagers or 20-somethings...

Outside of 'shock-value', it serves no purpose for me to go into details of exactly what the giggling vedeographer Hammonds encouraged the pseudo-actor Michael to do to various sandwiches and pizzas as he prepared them for delivery to customers. If it involves by-products from your nose, or tail-pipe emissions, or touching of other such delicate items that never belong in any of the major food groups, then you can figure out for yourself that these two went so far 'over the line' that they fell off the edge of prehistoric Earth. Apparently their audio portion was just as sick as he described what he was doing and how some unsuspecting customer would be eating it...alas, it looks like all traces of the original videos have been removed except for snippets used in news stories.

I suppose out of braggadocio Ms. Hammond posted the video for her sick friends to see, as well as a bit of demented fame and fortune for the duo...and in this world of social 'viral' mediums where information is sent around the world in the click of a button, they got what they were looking for. Oh, boy, did they get it.

One big heap o' trouble. Felony charges are pending, and well they should be. It goes without saying they were immediately fired. Domino's has had to fight a firestorm that it never should have had to do. Throw in a couple of mortified families and you have one ugly mess that would make Medusa look like 'Ms. Meditteranean Sea.'

I have a dark sense of humor that is arguably twisted, but what they did has not an iota of humor in it. It's actually beyond "fried", but "Fried Fridays" sounds better than "Nuked Fridays" to me.

And if there is even the slightest glimmer of optimism here...I might add their are a couple of new job openings now taking applications.

You are now free to go find your appetite...

Anatomy of a flute-fix

I am one to rarely accept special requests and orders, mainly because I have such a volatile schedule I can't guarantee time frames...and even if i could guarantee time frames, I as the wacky artist can only work when I feel so inspired, so things rarely move quickly. As a 'modus operandi' I prefer to make flutes I feel inspired to make, knowing they will 'find' their appropriate owner in due time. I make flutes simply because I enjoy the experience, and giving birth to 'playable art' that can touch the lives of others.

With that said, a customer wanted a 'sea' motif flute as he lives on a boat full-time, and wanted something in a spalted and/or curly wood. As I normally do, we tossed out ideas and suggestions and I set about to see what I was led to create. He wanted an F#, 6-hole, with a seagull for a block and a starfish inlay, for starters.

I selected some of my remaining Sycamore that is quartersawn and well-spalted (thin black fungal lines in the wood)....it's a very soft wood, so care must be used when power sanding, but it makes a beautiful flute. I decided on turquoise bands fore and aft as they were blue like the water, and put a starfish inlay of Bali Coral up just in front of the sound hole, leaving the center 'open' with the original wood. Because the wood has such pretty figuring and spalting, I left the flute long and opened up a lengthy tuning slot on the bottom to get the flute to pitch...

(click on pics to enlarge)

One aspect of the tuning slot I wasn't crazy about was that it created a curved appearance because of it's width, which intersected the circular barrel...too, I was a little too aggressive with the orbital palm sander which only made it more noticeable...

Still, the flute looked and played great, and when I went to sign the flute I realized that over a 2-month period....the pitch dropped from F# to F, which can happen on some flutes, depending on the wood and conditions. Lots of little tricks I can do to drop a pitch, but to raise a pitch is a whole 'nuther ball of wax. I wrote to the customer to see if he would mind an F, and also explained I could make it F# but the flute would lose over 4" in length. (NOTE: I could have drilled another tuning hole or elongated the slot, but it was already 'past' a useful dimension).

At his suggestion, he wanted the F#, and the idea of a more compact flute was nice since he lives in a very limited space. And so came one of those scary situations where I was going to take a perfectly good flute that was finished....and chop it. That is no easy task to do...I knew by the physics of this flute I would have to chop at the back of the tuning slot, and lose a lot of great wood as well as a turquoise inlay band.

OUCH!

The cut was made. The key was F#. The finger holes had enough thickness that I could lift their pitches without making the holes any bigger (removing wood from the base of the holes instead). However, when I looked at the cross-section, I had indeed over-sanded around the tuning slot (all too easy to do with soft woods)...and there was not enough thickness to run a new turquoise inlay band either. Ugh. What to do....

The flute needed something at the end, if for no other reason than to balance out the rear band. And so I thought and sketched and thought some more...I first thought a trident would be a great sea motif, and so I toyed with which direction to face it, size, etc....then took a blue Sharpie and drew a guide.

As I know to do, I just sat with the idea in my head for several days...lo and behold while at News 14 this week, during a lull, I had this idea to sketch a seabird motif with long sweeping wings...it would add the turquoise balance but not go near the too-thin bottom of the flute. And so Wednesday I made the cuts and put in the inlay, now with an oil wash in place for starters...


The block is pretty neat, but have held off posting pictures until I finish it. I'll put the finished flute on the blog when I'm done in a few days...whew, talk about the travails of flute-making!

In walking Mercy today I spied this really cool cedar log of sorts with all sorts of twisty limbs coming out of it. It's also almost pure red heartwood (instead of the cream colored sapwood). At the very least it will be great material for blocks and such, but it's also unique enough that I might have to carve the whole thing into some sort of organic sculpture with animals coming out of it....dunno. I've learned to just let something 'be' and look at it from time to time to see if anything 'comes' to mind. It is one intriguing piece of wood, for sure...

Too, with my wild success of my first branch flute, I collected what looks like great candidates for more branch flutes from that former forest. They take a lot of work and concentration (as any flute does, really), so I'm letting the branches sit out of the weather for now...

Never a dull moment, that I can assure you! Just battling the ol' energy-drain from filling in on my former shift...getting up at 1am is NOT conducive to feeling well-rested. However, the solo-studio I work in is fantastic for playing new flutes and honing their tunings - a nice little blessing!

"Branching" out...

Back when I collected some cedar and dogwoods from that forest that was ripped down a couple of years ago, I held on to this stick of cedar thinking one day I'd split it and make a 'branch flute'. There are some flute makers who do this exclusively, and it's a neat concept. Certainly some of the earliest aboriginal flutes were made this way...split, hollowed out, and the lashed back together using sinew and natural adhesives. Ah, if it were only that easy!

Anyway, I had a hankering to split it and try my hand at it...next time I'll take pictures of all the steps, but in this case I just flew into it rather quickly. I used a Dremel tool and cutter heads to work at hollowing out the heartwood (thankfully, cedar is quite soft and easy to work)...get's tricky because you don't want to cut too close to the outside.

Long story short, I hollowed it to my satisfaction and glued it up overnight. Making the 'nest' area for the block and sound hole mechanisms creates some obstacles to overcome. I have various tools that will make it easier in the future, but I chose a flattish area and filed it to a usable size. Given the length and the bore I cut, I knew I had to drop a tuning hole somewhere down the flute, so I found a small knot area that seemed to be about the right proportion that I needed, location-wise, and burned it out. Very natural looking hole, if I do say so myself.

The wood had a significant number of long cracks, the worst of which I filled in with CA glue (super glue) and a little bit with Bali Coral powder. I at first used varnish to fill in the smaller cracks because it dries so quickly; however, I didn't like the 'look' and took 400-grit sandpaper and sanded it off, being careful to preserve as much of the woods natural form and beauty as I could. Once I got it off, I went back to multiple hand-rubbed coats of "salad bowl finish", a nice penetrating oil that dries hard and 'safe'. The lustre of this flute is really gorgeous.

Well, wouldn't you know it...when I checked the flute for a fundamental, I got a perfectly clear note that was a hair under "A", and given this happened right at my "Verdi A432" epiphany, I tuned this puppy Verdi-style. I really do plan on getting a video/audio sample of my playing it, maybe today, so I can embed it into the blog (stay tuned!)


(click on pics to enlarge)


In the pictures you notice there is no block/fetish...I kept trying different blocks but they just didn't go with the flute. I returned to the same area and picked up old pieces of cedar to see if I could come up with a unique but naturally shaped block...


Alas, I took a small, simple piece and 'roughed it' into a modest, low profile bird...and it seems to fit the flute perfectly as the body gets to stand out front and center...


It's a dream-flute that I will keep in my stead, along with the original low E Verdi I blogged about earlier. They are not only special but 2 of the finest playing flutes I've made. Too, they're matched Verdis, so I can record them together. Ah, where are those 36-hour days I need???

"Fried Fridays: A Nervous Wreck"

In my carefree days as a kid, I enjoyed Saturday morning cartoons. The older Bugs Bunny skits still make me laugh to this day. Chip and Dale made my palms sweat with their near-death escapes. "I say, I say" that Foghorn Leghorn never gave up trying to trick the wise hound dog or outsmart the little chickenhawk in his stead. Ah, that list could go one.

And who can forget poor old Wile E. Coyote who tried every trick in the book to get the Roadrunner, only to meet his demise upon every effort...often "close, but no cigar".

And so we begin this week's winning "Fried Fridays" story...

DATELINE: BERLIN, GERMANY

Meet an unnamed 69 year-old Berliner fraulein who was at the Baltic resort island of Usedom. Couldn't find anything else about her, but I am now curious what her spiritual or psychic outlook on Life is.

For starters, I'm going to guess she is not an accomplished driver; or, if she were, that accomplishment has gone bye-bye, or at the very least been seriously compromised.

She had just gone to a local supermarket for a little shopping, but had the misfortune of running into 3 cars....count 'em, 3...as she was trying to pull out of the 'car park', as they call it.

Oops.

Probably out of panic and the shock of hitting the 3 cars, instead of hitting the brake she stepped hard on the accelerator.

Oops.

Her hurtling now-derby car shot across the lawn and promptly crashed into a nearby house.

Oops.

Luckily and thankfully, she was not seriously hurt. The police arrived on the scene and as you would expect called an ambulance to take the woman to the hospital for observation and treatment.

And so they carefully placed her on a gurney, into the ambulance and headed to the hospital. I would imagine that while shaken, the woman was glad she was in the 'okay' shape she was, considering her sequential mishaps.

Until a truck crashed into the ambulance before they arrived.

Ouch.

In one hour, this poor woman went from Aisle 12 to Room 12...but through it all sustained only minor injuries, amazingly.

"I'll take 'Hiring a Cab' for $600, Alex...."

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Happy Easter weekend to everybody! Have a SAFE one!!!

WHEW! Looks like most locations dodged a bullet insofar as damaging freezing temperatures early this morning. What temperatures went below 32 degrees didn't seem to last but a couple of hours, which should mean minimal if any bloom damage.

I'm still battling one of those colds that starts in the head and slooooowly notches downward toward the chest, and hopefully this puppy will keep on going and leave me alone. Tomorrow, Thursday, I start 15 days of weather work for the next 18 days, combining work for WSOC on Sundays and News 14 weekday mornings while Matthew East is on paternity leave (CONGRATULATIONS!). The fun part will be the double shifts where I show up in Charlotte during the mid-day...that'll really mess with viewers' brains! "That's the way, uh huh uh huh, I liiiiike it....uh huh uh huh....."

Alright, first are two videos that have been on the mass email lists so you may have seen them, but they sure are cute...remember to cut your volume on or put in your earbuds! First up is...


BOOGIE DOWN, BABY!!!


This one is really clever, as well....make sure you watch it all the way to the end, past the designer words...


CLEVER WOMAN!


I had pictures of one more flute that is in my flat-bottomed family of flutes I call Half-Pipes. They're simply a more affordable alternative to the traditional round-bore flutes. This one is a mid F#, which is about as low as I can make these due to physics and equipment limitations. The wood is unknown, though I suspect it's one of the more dense varieties of Mahogany...this one has some heft to it. Normally I don't adorn these flutes as it adds to the price a little, but I had this crazy idea to relief-burn a giant Kokopelli since I had good wall thickness in the flute. The block is a firetail made from Zebrawood...I like the wood for blocks and endcaps, but I've never felt the urge to buy it to make flute bodies, for some reason. Maybe one day I'll change my mind. As always, click on pics to enlarge...and have a great day as we start warming back up!

Couple o' new flutes

Got to hit the road to do a Bojangle's training film voice-over, so won't write a whole lot today. The script is all about the cleaning steps they have to go through for all the equipment and store and, well, seems like they would be cleaning endlessly. NOT my forte! Note to self: "Don't go into the restaurant business..."

Two new flutes to share with you...shortly I'll put up a sound sample, but it's just pics for now. First up is my new Low E with the Verdi A432 tuning. The body is Papua New Guinea Walnut and the block is Sapele, though it's mostly the whiter sapwood (see second flute for Sapele heartwood). I wanted a block with a "V" in it to stand for Verdi and as I took the wood and began shaping it, it came out like a geometric ram/goat:

(click on pics to enlarge)





A couple of years ago I purchased a board of Cocobolo that had some of the most stunning patterns I've ever seen in that wood...and it did not disappoint as I rounded it all down. Cocobolo is an oily wood but sands/polishes to this glass-like surface. Many finishes don't adhere well to the wood, and this is simply hand-sanded to 1,200-grit and a coat of Danish wood oil applied. It has a gorgeous natural lustre just as it is. The Praying Eagle fetish is from Sapele (heartwood) and helps bring out the oranges in the flute.






Carpe Diem, y'all!!!

"Fried Fridays: CONGRATULATIONS!"

For readers new to this blog, I take Fridays to honor a 'fried' news story that I've found to be particularly stupid or blundering, or at least in some way a 'head-shaker', and write it my way. When I saw this story a couple of days ago, I knew immediately I would knight it this week's winner....

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Getting into college is no easy task, depending on the college, of course. Competition can be fierce, and if a student doesn't have the greatest of G.P.A.s or SAT scores or the most diverse list of extracurricular activities and involvement, it's even tougher.

Tougher yet is paying for college. Funds and loan programs continue to totter, and for some they just can't swing the fees, even with trying to hold down a job and be a full-time student. But students persevere and keep their hopes high. Their lives depend on that type of attitude.

DATELINE: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

There's a lot of people that would love to get into the University of California at the San Diego campus, and who wouldn't? Sunny southern California, with beauty to beat the band. It's no wonder 46,377 hopeful applicants flooded the Admissions inbox last fall.

Alas, it's a numbers game, and a slim one at that. There was room for only 17,000 acceptances to be proffered, leaving the 29,000+ others with a "sorry" note.

I imagine that's hard, making the decision of who gets the thumbs up and who is turned away. For some it's traumatic, and at the very least a solid downer. Nobody likes rejection. It's a tough job, a serious job, and a constantly on-going job, Admissions. But somebody's got to do it.

And so the day comes on March 14 to notify those that made it in as well as those that didn't make the cut. 29,000 bummed applicants were sent swimming back into the admissions waters.

The next step involving the 17,000 'winners' was to send them a 'Welcome!' letter this past Monday, March 30. Not all of the 17,000 have made their final decision whether they'll attend UCSD or not and become a Triton, but the school wants to woo the best and the brightest. And so such an e-letter of welcome hit the cybermail highway Monday.

To all of 'em.

Including the 29,000+ that were not accepted.

Oops.

Can't you just hear that TV show line from Steve Urkel, now: "Did I do thaaaaaaaaat?"

Somebody's head in Admissions was rolling for that gaffe. It took the department 2 hours to discover the mistake and send out a retraction letter with profuse apologies. Officials blamed it on a technical error as the letter was sent to the wrong database.

I think it's more like "operator error", but I digress.

What is Verdi A432?

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THIS IS AN UPDATE POSTED THURSDAY MORNING...A COMPLETION FROM YESTERDAY AS I WRAP UP MY EXPERIENCE WITH A432 TUNING ON 2 OF MY FLUTES...there is a "Part Two" marker where I picked back up if you already read the first part.
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(NOTE: long read ahead...but it's cool stuff, really!)

Before I even begin, let me tell you I'm such a novice on this topic that I profess to not 'get' the overwhelming scientific and numeric calculations that are a part of tuning musical instruments. However, there are some "Cliff Notes"-type of observations that I hope I can put in layman's terms for you, because I now know enough to know I really really really am intrigued and rather excited about my short experience thus far with tuning to A432. Too, you will soon see this goes waaaay beyond just sheer numbers, ways that can potentially impact any and all of us at any time. Or not, since the 'accepted' world of music ain't changin' anytime soon...

Basically, this is a crash course in music and how it's tuned.

I will also set aside the native flute for the moment except for aside mentions...while a deeply spiritual and honored instrument through the ages up through today, the Native American flute originally had no 'tuning' insofar as scales, etc. That was a decidedly Western modification since the overwhelming majority of music is set to precise scales, tunings, etc. A true native instrument that is 'Grandfather' tuned can at first be strange to hear, but if you allow the concept of tuning to leave your brain and just 'be' with the aboriginal energy, you will gain a much deeper appreciation of things truly spiritual and raw.

I am not going to crunch through the history of tuning musical instruments, but I will say that within that topic are things a) political, b) scientific, and c) spiritual. Mention 'classical music' and even the most novice think of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach (all of 'em!), and many others, of which Verdi fits in (ever heard of the opera "AIDA"?!). Throughout Europe going back a couple of centuries was quite the blossoming of those classical greats and many more...being a church organist was akin to being royalty to some degree, and governments often commissioned musical works, be they operas, symphonies, etc...the world of classical music was VERY serious business, and highly competitive at the same time.

Modern classical instruments have come a long way in their mechanical evolution, and how instruments are tuned has, as well. If you've been to any theater involving an orchestra, you know they have the 'first chair' provide the tuning note, followed by a cacophany of notes being played by all as they make the final adjustments to their instruments before the conductor comes out. Even barroom bands have to check their strings and chords (as well as electrical connections) so that they are all in synch. But what are they tuning to, exactly? Who determines the 'accepted' value? Let me back the bus up a second so we're all on the same page...

Basic Science 101: everything has vibrational energy. Even rocks...they're made of atoms, each of which has electrons whirling in orbits around them (and more)...the point is that just because it looks big, hard, and never moves doesn't mean it is lifeless. To the contrary, it is full of energy, only we humans can't perceive it. ALL of life is full of such energy and movement. Vibrations are inescapable, no matter what and where and when...just not always identifiable. There are vibrations in the universe, vibrations within the earth, vibrations from wind, especially interacting with other objects ( the flute...air hitting a cutting edge and creating oscillating waves, plain and simple). And all that energy comes in waves of all shapes, durations, etc. If you apply the time factor to those vibrations, those waves that machines can measure the 'period' of, you get ideas of 'oscillations per second' or whatever terms and units you need to use. We can quantify such vibrations, and that's exactly what is done in the world of music.

Each musical note has it's own unique vibrational frequency...with most instruments you can adjust the 'pitch' up or down to match a 'standard'. The lower the note, the lower the frequency, The higher the note, the higher the frequency. Frequency is simply oscillations per unit of time, which for musical purposes is notated as Hz or 'hertz' in cycles per second. The title above uses A432, which is short for "A below middle C tuned to 432 Hz". Hold this thought...

Pianos ain't what they used to be, having gone through myriad modifications through the past few centuries. And so I now cut through a forest of details to the likes of Mozart and Verdi who wrote their music with "A" set at 430/432 and the C below at 256, aka 'scientific pitch'. In 1884 Verdi petitioned the Italian music commission to adopt A432 as the orchestral standard...why, you ask? What was played in Venice was not what was played in Moscow, not what was played in Paris, not what was played in Vienna, and was not what was played in London, not necessarily. "A" was tuned to anything from 420 to 470, which truly changed the overall harmonies and 'sound' of given works. Nothing was standard. And it makes a noticeable difference not only on the ears but for singers' voices, for example.

I once again will skip the mountainous information on who pressed for which tuning where. Suffice it to say there has been a long-running battle and a lot of political strong-arming to raise the pitch to A440 because it 'brightens' the sound, regardless of other deeper, underlying physics of the lower tuning. Politics. Always been a part of this ol' world, and always will be, folded in with a significant dose of Ego. To try and convey this all to you in a nutshell would be like having a picnic in hell. In 1917 a U.S. musicians federation tried to adopt A440...and in WWII, Germany's Goebbels pressed for it in 1939. Even in 1953 the International Standardizing Organization met and passed a resolution to use A440...alas, as was done in prior conventions, they did not invite any of the major musicians opposing standardizing A440, and many conveniently ignored it...and to this day still do, though A440 is what the significant body of all music is all about. Watch American Idol and listen to songs pitched to A440. Go to church and sing a hymn played with A440. Put on a CD of Bob Dylan classics and listen to songs set at...well, I don't know whattheheck his voice was music was set to...

You still with me? Now, if you want to keep the comparison at its most basic level, do you realize what this hullabaloo is all about? In terms of outright pitch, it's something on the order of a quarter tone...not even a half step...like the pitch inbetween playing C and then the black key to the right, the tone inbetween those two notes. If you're thinking, "HUH??? THAT'S IT???" you would be justified. HOWEVER....this is where the cool stuff kicks in. It goes way beyond just a quartertone...

I will often use the expression that most humans sleepwalk through Life. Truly. They are like droids that go through daily motions and activities, participate in repetitive thoughts and behaviors and reactions as they always have, CLUELESS to matters spiritual and what's going on around them not only at higher and lower levels but at their very level. Heck, if you didn't move, many would run over you in a grocery store aisle because they have no perception of what's going on more than 6 inches outside of their body...

-------------- PART TWO --------------

You know the expression "you are what you eat"? In exactly the same way you are what you think, what you believe, what you do (which is tied in to what you think)...until you reach some moment or experience that jostles you to make your choice to change any of those paradigms within your inner 'structure'. I mentioned at the start that this A432 issue is one that is political, scientific, and spiritual (or whatever term you wish to insert that covers sensory and metaphysical aspects).

This is where I'm in a pickle...to me, this is the crux of what I 'experienced', as you'll soon read. This is where the 'spiritual' aspect comes into play, cosmic vibrations, alpha brain waves, important numbers to ancient civilizations, why the number "432" is significant. The pickle is that for the majority of this information....I simply can't adequately explain yet due to its newness. At the same time, I have this deep, deep 'knowingness' that while I can't explain it, I 'understand' and accept it, or at least the effects of it.

Bach's A440 tuning suspposedly touches only 8 of the the full twelve scale octaval overtones, where the A432 tuning incorporates the full 12 octaval overtones (keep this thought handy for later). Mozart and Verdi (and others) often chose to tune to A430-432 (sometimes down to A426) because they intrinsically knew that this 'scientific tuning' (C=256) yielded the richest sounds for their works (thanks to harmonics and overtone production). Their push for A432 (or at least keeping the lower tunings) in particular also has significant root structure in several aspects of nature, ancient civilizations, and things celestial.

You've at least heard of alpha and beta brain waves...alpha is more in the subconscious realm, extremely powerful in the 'work' it can do; the tone of alpa waves are somewhere between 7.2 and 8 Hz, with 8 being an accepted value simply for mathmatical purposes. Too, the earth itself is said to resonate at 8Hz (Schumann resonance). One important application of alpha waves are what martial arts experts and top athletes are able to harness, mentally, as they perform seemingly super-human feats. The vast majority of us empower only beta waves (14-40Hz).

Even going back before the Greeks, scientists have found musical instruments tuned to 432Hz as well as harmonics of that tuning (144Hz, for example) in drums sealed in tombs thousands of year BC. Many instruments from ancient Greece are tuned to 432; from the Eluesenian Mysteries Orpheus, the god of Music, Death, and Rebirth, used instruments tuned to 432. Even if this doesn't mean much of anything to you, 432 is clearly not a random number. it had a distinct purpose that through written and etched accounts involved spiritual celebrations and connections with the gods and heavens, spanning myriad cultures and civilizations.

Many ancient temples use the 8/432 in their calculations, as well. With 8 being a 'root', 432 is both (54x8) as well as (72x3). One of the great pyramids is built with a sea-level base of 432 of their Earath-Units. In the Teotihuacan, Mexico complex of Toltec temples used ther T-Units and built the great Pyramid of the Sun with a base circumference of 864 (2x432). Each side is 216 T-Units, which is half of 432. Legend has it the Toltecs were given these numbers by "Shaman Wizards" from the spiritual realm. (ref)

Now, you want to talk about getting left in the dust in the first couple of paragraphs, try digesting Keppler's Harmony of the World as he explains the 'music' that exists in the heavens (written ~400 years ago!). Remember, music/notes are expressed numerically, and 432 ends up being a significant number (432 and it's multiples and derivatives). He and others have gone into extensive detailed calculations of orbits and timing and zodiacal/star-field influences, and come up with ancient tuning frequencies that involve the harmonics of 432 and 144 (i.e., for the latter, the speed of light is 144,000 miles per second). Admittedly, this is by far my most fuzzy area, but I am comfortable accepting the ideology of cosmic harmonics.

Take a deep breath. If you are a person sensitive and open to knowledge and information that most of mainstream society doesn't talk about, then the above makes sense. Not everyone can or wants to see or understand such 'unknowns', and that's their choice as they journey through their Life. I reiterate that a lot of the numeric calculation 'stuff' goes over my head, but I've learned enough to know when I run across something that speaks solidly to my Truth. But let me put this into real-world terms of today. Let me tell you my experience Monday afternoon...

I had a batch of flutes just sitting in early-stage hexagonal form waiting for tuning and sanding. My flute friend Mike had pressed me on Verdi tuning and I did a lot of research to understand it as best I could. Finding a chart with all the frequencies I needed took a bit of digging, but I found a chart I'm comfortable with, which is a diagram of how James Furia (A432 proponent) tunes his keyboard (click to enlarge):


And now I bring the Native American style flute into the picture. Tuning a flute begins with establishing the fundamental, the key of the flute. You hone and craft the flue and sound hole and adjust the length of the bore until you are at the best possible sound (oh, if it were that simple!!!) In this case, I tuned the fundamental to the most appropriate note which was E324. There are inexpensive little portable meters you can use (Korg, etc.) as well as on-line tuners, which I've been opting to use. Sparing you the details, you get multiple types of data on the tuning screen, of which I simply use the Hz numbers jumping around. I made my adjustments to bring it up to that E324 I was aiming for (much more difficult to bring the pitch down than take it up, FYI).

NOTE: the NA flute ain't no orchestral instrument, in that pitch can fluctuate some with humidity and temperature...you don't see a Quilted maple clarinet, for example, because it would require constant adjustment to lock in an exact tone...that's why almost exclusively Ebony and Blackwood are used given their consistent properties (and consistently expensive price, too!!!) With that said, knowing it's impossible to lock in on the exact Hz, "close" seems to be just fine...

Once I had the fundamental set, the playing barrel still had no holes yet. At this point I can drill just about any scale known to man if I wanted to. Remember not to confuse Verdi TUNING with a SCALE of any sort. This article is all about and ONLY about the vibration of notes, not what the musical intervals are between notes. I took that low E (in a gorgeous tan, shimmery Papua New Guinea Walnut, I might add!) and used the same minor pentatonic scaling I use with my regular flutes. Back and forth I went between the machines on the deck and the tuner on the computer, until I had matched the frequencies as best I could.

And then it happened. I went out on the back deck, overlooking woods, and took the flute for a serious test drive. I didn't know what to expect, but I knew what I'd already learned had to smack of some serious truths. Mind open, empty as I could get it. As I type, I'm balking...I can't put into words what I heard and felt. Too, I've always been rather sentient to vibrational energy, heard and unheard, seen and unseen.

The fullness and purity of the tones was overwhelming, and I'm hear to tell you those harmonics/overtones were popping out like Orville Redenbacher's popcorn in a warehouse fire. I've tuned many, many flutes on that deck in the same way under the same conditions, and I'd never heard such 'returns' from the woods and bouncing off the back of the house. The other thing I noticed was I didn't want to put the flute down. I kept testing all kinds of styles and techniques...and the notes above the octave were effortless to play and spot-on. I went in the house and put the flute on a nearby rack, went and grabbed something else to sand, and then would pick the flute up and play. I sat on the sofa with Mercy and just played. Later that evening I laid down on the bed and played it. What I'd read about the A432 tuning making you feel more at peace and in harmony, with richer more harmonic sounds, it was all true for me, as well. As I wrote in a flute forum, "I've been to the Mountain and seen it for myself."

The next step was odd in that I thought I'd record a sound sample with it. Admittedly, I still have some issues with high quality recording since I lost my computer tower last year...my laptop has a lousy sound card, so I record through a digital device and then import into Adobe Audition 1.5 software for editing. This is how I make sound samples when customers want to hear a flute, or how I cut audition tapes for acting gigs sometimes. I use a bathroom as it's quiet and has that nice bright tone due to the hard surfaces. And so I recorded a softer, slow song with it, downloaded it...and though the spectral analysis had the peak sound waaaay below the 'red line', it was unusable due to the distortions that flute created in the recording device, thanks to the hard, bouncy surfaces...sounded great to my ear, but that set-up wreaked havoc for recording, and no other flute has ever done that. All that to say it convinced me all the more that there is truly something different about that "simple little ol' quartertone" drop, and I'm excited about exploring it further.

The next day I was salvaging one of my deeper Half-Pipes from a cosmetic mistake, a Red Cedar F#, and whipped it out in A432. Same result. The only 'drawback' is that unless you are playing with other instruments tuned to A432, such a flute is a solo instrument as it would be out of tune with A440 instruments.

Taking the spiritual angle one step further, I am intrigued and already convinced that in the growing world of sound/music therapy, healing through vibrational energy, that there is much to be gained by continuing to study and observe the effect A432 has on healing and recovery. Per the NA flute, I'm taking an already strongly spiritually based instrument and applying ancient healing principles into it's voicing/tuning...and what I experienced that Monday afternoon was synergy at its best. The whole exceeded the sum of the parts.

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Thanks for your patience and interest. I'll be posting pics of that first flute when it's finished...already made the block, too, which is an unusual 'ram/goat' of sorts...and I'll explain why then!