"The Creative Process: Listening To Intuition"

While I'm going to talk about the above title as it relates to a 'new' flute, many aspects relate to any creative endeavor, especially when you work from a spiritual basis...even day to day life.

Intuition. Internal 'nudges'. That ol' gut feel. We want to listen to it, but do we? Sometimes? Never? Always? The more we get comfortable with it, the more we trust it, and the more you trust it, the more you 'go with the flow', and the more you 'go with the flow' the easier a lot of things transpire. Just the way things work.

And so I posted pics earlier of my Eagle flute...the original concept was altered out of the gate as I was going to make a closed-end flute with an eagle head, except my dimensions were all wrong so I cut it off...but I left the end of the flute solid for the rising sun inlay, just to be unique.

All was copasetic with the Sitka Spruce eagle sitting on the Ironwood block...energy was good, felt right, it was all lights green...but the flute had me hooked only 85%. Lots of little things kept me from being totally comfortable with it, some I could identify and some I couldn't. Maybe the block and 4-color bands competed instead of complimented. The key waffled between E-flat and D, and I ended up making it a D...nice fundamental, played fine...but I was never fully at peace with it. Not that everything can always be perfect, mind you, but something inside kept gnawing that the flute was not yet 'finished'.

As I will often do, I allowed 'things' to just sit for a couple of weeks...I'd pick the flute up and play it, handle it, etc....leave it alone, revisit it, leave it alone...and those 'nudges' never really left. While it drew interest, there were no buyers, and I was in no rush to see it go feeling like I did.

Forward to last week where I took some flute blanks I glued up a month ago and began selectively tuning a few of them. Anymore these days, with all the weather work and squirrelly schedules, I've shifted more to quality instead of quantity with flutes...I've been taking my time to establish more perfected voices and designs, and it's working pretty well.

Then came along my first flute out of a unique board of Brazilian Cherry I've had for a year. Low E-flat. Rock solid. Dropped in the finger holes which immediately needed very little adjustments, which is not necessarily a good thing: in sanding down of the barrel the pitch can rise slightly, so you want to keep notes below pitch until you are finished sanding. Once the barrel was 90% sanded, I over-bored the finger holes to 1/2" diameter, in which I inserted 1/2" Walnut plugs...from there I selected a smaller drill bit for the centers and brought the flute up to pitch...so now I have finger holes rimmed in dark brown, a nice contrast to the golden flute color.

I always complete a flute body before ever making the specific block to go on top, an essential part of this creative process. Then, just the other morning around 1:30am (my day starts early, to say the least!), I got this overwhelming 'suggestion' to put the eagle block on this flute...and it was like the old cartoon SHA-ZAAM! (dating myself here) where two people joined the halves of their rings and all this magical power erupted...I had just mated and created the flute that was 'supposed to be'.

The look. The feel. The sound. That voice. Instant synergy, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And because it wasn't a custom order, I exercised my right to 'dibs' and am keeping it in my personal collection. Kind of a nice right to have, though I haven't officially 'kept' a flute in a couple of years, believe it or not. I do the majority of my recording and performing with maybe a dozen older flutes that are like extensions of me, and now those select ranks have grown one more. I imagine before long I'll record with it and post a link here, but that may be a few weeks away yet.

FYI, I've taken the brown flute, cut 2" off the end, added a thin Ebony end cap, and raised the pitch to E. As I suspected, it now 'snaps' when it plays...just refinished the body, and will now see what 'nudges' I get for its new and more appropriate block...pics to come when finished...and speaking of pics, remember you can click on any pic to enlarge for better viewing.

It's Friday, and one of those days we revel in with the freeing weekend before us, even with double-shift duty today. Like a pony smelling the barn on the return trail home, it is...enjoy!