Flutes Jam – guides to improvisation
Have you ever wanted to improvise with your pennywhistle or bamboo flute and didn’t know where to start, or where to go next?
Flutes Jam aims to help guide your flute journey with a series of guided explorations, using scale charts that can serve as a visual aid to understanding, or as a quick reference. While I can’t teach technique or talent through words and images, I aim to encourage understanding, appreciation, and your inspiration to play beautiful music… whether on silver flute, wooden or bamboo flute, pennywhistle, Shakuhachi or Native American flute.
Happy playing!
– Nowick Gray
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Building Up From Three
Lately I’ve been focusing on triads: three core notes of a scale, built on the primary dyad of root and fifth (1–5). Since in one direction (ascending) that interval is a fifth, in the other direction (5–1) the interval is a fourth. Likewise, 1–4 is a fourth but 4–1, going up to the next octave,…
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A Little Beach Music
Today, the warmest and sunniest day of the young year, called for a couple of flutes to come along on a hike to Grandma’s Bay on Salt Spring Island. Once ensconced on the gravel beach, with direct sun exposure and a distant commentary of geese, with the occasional sailboat or ferry cruising past the blue…
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Map and Territory
Perhaps like me you’ve always harbored a latent desire to play jazz. If you’re anywhere close to my age of seventy-two, you’re not going to suddenly aspire to sharing your genius in jazz clubs. Yet loving the sounds of your flutes, you’re commited at least to continue the learning path, an eternal beginner. You can…
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A Brief Musical Résumé
Sixty years ago, at age thirteen, I quit the school band since I had only reached second chair after three years with the trumpet. I idolized Louis Armstrong and had a vague desire to play jazz instead of Mozart. But the chops weren’t there—or the discipline, drive, dedication, whatever else it took. Besides, I wanted…
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Playing Modes
The Modal Method bases scales on the modes of the major scale. Modes > 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 D Major D E F# G A B C# E Dorian Minor D E F# G A B C# F# Phrygian D E F# G A B C# G…
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Invocation: Flutes Jam Haiku
Flutes Jam Haiku Keep asking one thing: what is the core vibration inside all that is? Keep playing that note riding in that frequency… all else will follow.
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Welcome
Welcome to the Flutes Jam blog. Follow here for updated tips and insights for your flute practice. For a deeper dive into my own exploration and discoveries playing bamboo and silver flutes, subscribe for free to my Substack channel, The Wayward Flute. For a book-length collection of lessons, guided explorations, and helpful scale charts for…
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