About a year ago, I finished my first bone flute, a dream come true!
Flutes are some of my favourite musical instruments. When I was younger, I used to play the flute in a local philharmonic band, and later I joined a bagpipe playing group and learned how to play the galician bagpipe, which is not a flute but close enough 😄 Indeed, flutes have always fascinated me, but making and playing my own bone flute... that was next level to me.
I deeply love our Stone Age Ancestors and the Old Ways. So to be able to make a flute out of an animal bone, using only stone tools, and then to actually make music out of it... it truly stirred - and still stirs - an ancient memory in me. Even though the flute is new, its sound is ancient. A sound probably not so different from the one our Ancestors would hear when playing their own bone flutes, perhaps in ritual or in play, perhaps while walking through the forest or around the community fire. And this way, a bridge is created and I feel them closer to me.
Making this flute was such a joyful but also challenging learning experience. The body of the flute wasn’t so difficult to make, however, it took me quite a while to figure out how to adjust the beeswax on the top part of the flute to be able to play it 😅
To be honest, I’m not sure I would have been successful at all if it wasn’t for the amazing support, help and tips on flute making I received from both Lynx Vilden and Mikka Vanhapiha during our Stone Age week in Finland last February (you can read about it in my blog here). Indeed, it was Lynx that in the end shaped the beewax correctly with both her hands and her bone needle. It was a dream come true when I finally listened to the sound of the flute for the first time!
This flute is made out of a reindeer bone. The mouth piece is almost completely covered with beewax except for the blowing hole – that I learned should be larger and wider at the top, and smaller and flatter at the bottom. All the front holes were made by hand with a couple of pointy bits of flintstone and a bit of water to make the bone softer. I left the last hole smaller for now, but I might enlarge it in the future in case I want to adjust the pitch. For now, I am pleased with the final result.
In this video, I share a small improvised tune with the bone flute. Hope you enjoy it!