TONY MORRIS AND HIS AMERYND FLUTES
Tony Morris became aware of the Native American Flute in Harrogate, North Yorkshire in 1988 when he bought two Coyote Oldman tape recordings. He first heard the Native American Flute played live by American Folk Singer, Tania Opland at the Black Swan Folk Club in York. He realised for the first time that it was not a transverse flute. Eventually on a trip to Canada, after much searching, he found his first flute in the First Nations’ Trading post in Banff.
The story goes that he glimpsed the flutes as he was leaving the trading post and determined to return alone next day. Strolling in the grounds of the Banff Springs Hotel, he heard a raven sitting in a cedar tree speaking to him. They talked and the Raven told him to buy one of the flutes he had just seen. Next day while having a picnic by the Bow River, close to the Trading Post, another raven approached him and confirmed the conversation with the first Raven.
In the Trading Post, Tony tried a number of the flutes on display but it was a black cedar flute with a Raven as the totemic block that was the one for him. It was made by Odell Borg of High Spirits Flutes, in Arizona. Tony Morris has since used the Raven Flute in several recordings including, as an accompaniment to, ‘Lady in Black’. That is the story of how Tony came to play the Native American Flute.
In 2008,when the US dollar was at a significant low against the GB pound, 2 dollars to the pound, Tony purchased a wonderful Drone Flute, a type of flute he had wanted for some time, in A made of Virginian flame maple by Ed HRebec of Spirit of the Woods Flutes, www.spiritofthewoodsflutes.com This is a beautiful instrument that Tony Morris plays frequently in concert and in folk clubs where it is a real favourite. The downside to this was the customs duty imposed by Britain, £70! This put up a real trade wall against any further imports from the US and, of course, the US dollar/GB pound situation is no longer so favourable.
As a result, Tony looked for Flute makers in England and was lucky enough to find two first class ones. The story of how he found the first of these is that, one night parking his car on street near his home in Whitby, North Yorkshire, close by the woodland that lines the valley of the River Esk, where, before the coming of the Railway, the West Bank shipyards were, he witnessed two young badgers fighting. At that time badgers were a common sight in the streets near the Esk. The next day he was searching the Internet for makers of Native American Flutes, or Native American Style Flutes, to be legalistic, and found a company in Devon called Uguna Flutes . Reading on he learned that the word ‘Uguna’ pronounced ‘oog-oo-na’ is one of the Tsalagi words for 'badger', Tony, obviously, had to make contact. The result was the supply of a flute in G made of Port Orford cedar that is as light as a feather to handle and which as responsive to the breath as a feather in the air. The totemic block is a badger.
Searching further on the Internet, Tony found a company Second Voice Flutes, advertising a flute as a ‘Gathering Flute’ that would play in windy conditions. Now Whitby, with its high cliffs facing North into the North Sea and surrounded by the North Yorkshire Moors, can be a windy place, so this was an obvious choice. Flute maker, David Cartwright made him a ‘Gathering Flute’, a High B, from English flame cherry. This remarkable little flute has a gutsy bounce that you get from English hardwoods. Tony often see Herons standing in the shallows of the River Esk at low water, so David made two totemic herons heads for the two blocks that are with the flute, a purple crested heron for playing outside in the wind and a grey crested heron for playing by quiet waters, sometimes with a little alcohol in them!
David has also made Tony Morris an E Drone in Devon Walnut and English Ash that combines the spiritual resonance of the ancient South West of England with Yggdrasill,the Ash tree that was the Tree of Life at the centre of the Cosmos of
Viking Mythology.
The Low B flute that David made for Tony is probably unique as it is made from Lime wood, a wood not usually used for this purpose. To increase the air pressure and make it louder as a low-key flute David has incorporated a feature learned from the old organ makers. The Flute is all about metamorphosis. The totemic block is a seal, an animal that Tony sees frequently in the Estuary of the River Esk, which is Whitby harbour, but this seal is coloured as an immature seal, posing the question, “Is it going to grow into seal or selkie, male or female?” On the lower end of the flute’s barrel is painted a Green Man associated with the steeply wooded sides of the Esk. The Green Man has two faces. When you invert the Flute there is a second Green Man. The Seal and the Green Man symbolise Sea and Land, the creatures in it and the trees upon it, united by the air that flows through the Flute to produce its deeply resonant haunting voice, changed by the air from a decorated piece of wood into a musical instrument.
Tony then noticed an unusual flute on Geoff Norman’s Uguna flutes’ site which had an open mouthpiece and was said to be on a based on an old Lakota design. It is called the ‘Bumblebee’ because another flute maker measured it with a pair of Vernier Calipers, put the measurements into his computer programme and declared that it wouldn’t work. The Bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly, according to aeronautical engineers. Well, both this Flute, made of Italian Spruce, and the Bumblebee can fly. This High D Flute has a loud voice that soars like a lark.
Geoff Norman came by the design in a museum in Italy where he was shown a flute bought back to Italy in the year 1630 by a Count Beltrami. Geoff was invited to play it, the first person to play it for 300 years. Tony now has two other flutes of this design, a C made from Sycamore wood that allows one to bend notes, and so plays well as a jazz instrument, and a Low D in yellow cedar.
In May 2009 Tony Morris demonstrated a couple of flutes in the Little Owl Series for David Cartwright of Second Voice Flutes at a Mind Body Spirit Fair and bought the High E made of Virginian flame maple. This was a five holed flute designed for children and starters. The fact that it took hardly any breath to play made him suggest that it might help asthma sufferers. David’s reply was interesting. He said that, “The asthma thing is a very sane idea”. He came round to it some time ago, when he found one of the pro flute players he knew smoking cigarettes between performances and was told that it was only playing the flutes that kept him able to breathe properly. David also said that it had certainly made a dramatic difference to a person he knew who, after a bout of meningitis had knocked out his ability to control his breathing, had found that the flutes had gone some way to re-training the damaged parts of the brain. This was the main reason that David developed the air delivery systems that he uses in his flutes. So, flute playing really can help those with breathing difficulties.
At this time I also asked David Cartwright if he could make me a low drone flute. The result was that he made a new design tuned to Low C. I eventually took delivery on the day following the Winter Solstice 2010. It is a fantastically versatile flute as you can hear by listening to 'Wood with Water', Snow Walk' and 'Chasing the Drone' on the Home page. The flute is made of English Rippled Alder from Dartmoor with a fluid, mellifluous voice that can be coaxed to growl and purr. I often see salmon leaping in the Esk at Whitby in North Yorkshire where I live so the double chimney block carries a beatiful carving of a salmon leaping up a water rush. A picture of the flute and the technical details of its making can be seen on the Second Voice website
The story continues. David Cartwright has created another special flute which plays, in simple terms, Arabic and Persian scales. It is a very versatile flute as one can also use it to play along with Blues and Jazz. Mine has a totemic block of a Jacob Sheep and so I refer to it as my Jacob Flute. The wood is young Spalted Beech with a Cherry Wood shoe and the block is Birch. A picture of the flute and the technical details of its making can be seen on the Second Voice website .
The story goes that he glimpsed the flutes as he was leaving the trading post and determined to return alone next day. Strolling in the grounds of the Banff Springs Hotel, he heard a raven sitting in a cedar tree speaking to him. They talked and the Raven told him to buy one of the flutes he had just seen. Next day while having a picnic by the Bow River, close to the Trading Post, another raven approached him and confirmed the conversation with the first Raven.
In the Trading Post, Tony tried a number of the flutes on display but it was a black cedar flute with a Raven as the totemic block that was the one for him. It was made by Odell Borg of High Spirits Flutes, in Arizona. Tony Morris has since used the Raven Flute in several recordings including, as an accompaniment to, ‘Lady in Black’. That is the story of how Tony came to play the Native American Flute.
In 2008,when the US dollar was at a significant low against the GB pound, 2 dollars to the pound, Tony purchased a wonderful Drone Flute, a type of flute he had wanted for some time, in A made of Virginian flame maple by Ed HRebec of Spirit of the Woods Flutes, www.spiritofthewoodsflutes.com This is a beautiful instrument that Tony Morris plays frequently in concert and in folk clubs where it is a real favourite. The downside to this was the customs duty imposed by Britain, £70! This put up a real trade wall against any further imports from the US and, of course, the US dollar/GB pound situation is no longer so favourable.
As a result, Tony looked for Flute makers in England and was lucky enough to find two first class ones. The story of how he found the first of these is that, one night parking his car on street near his home in Whitby, North Yorkshire, close by the woodland that lines the valley of the River Esk, where, before the coming of the Railway, the West Bank shipyards were, he witnessed two young badgers fighting. At that time badgers were a common sight in the streets near the Esk. The next day he was searching the Internet for makers of Native American Flutes, or Native American Style Flutes, to be legalistic, and found a company in Devon called Uguna Flutes . Reading on he learned that the word ‘Uguna’ pronounced ‘oog-oo-na’ is one of the Tsalagi words for 'badger', Tony, obviously, had to make contact. The result was the supply of a flute in G made of Port Orford cedar that is as light as a feather to handle and which as responsive to the breath as a feather in the air. The totemic block is a badger.
Searching further on the Internet, Tony found a company Second Voice Flutes, advertising a flute as a ‘Gathering Flute’ that would play in windy conditions. Now Whitby, with its high cliffs facing North into the North Sea and surrounded by the North Yorkshire Moors, can be a windy place, so this was an obvious choice. Flute maker, David Cartwright made him a ‘Gathering Flute’, a High B, from English flame cherry. This remarkable little flute has a gutsy bounce that you get from English hardwoods. Tony often see Herons standing in the shallows of the River Esk at low water, so David made two totemic herons heads for the two blocks that are with the flute, a purple crested heron for playing outside in the wind and a grey crested heron for playing by quiet waters, sometimes with a little alcohol in them!
David has also made Tony Morris an E Drone in Devon Walnut and English Ash that combines the spiritual resonance of the ancient South West of England with Yggdrasill,the Ash tree that was the Tree of Life at the centre of the Cosmos of
Viking Mythology.
The Low B flute that David made for Tony is probably unique as it is made from Lime wood, a wood not usually used for this purpose. To increase the air pressure and make it louder as a low-key flute David has incorporated a feature learned from the old organ makers. The Flute is all about metamorphosis. The totemic block is a seal, an animal that Tony sees frequently in the Estuary of the River Esk, which is Whitby harbour, but this seal is coloured as an immature seal, posing the question, “Is it going to grow into seal or selkie, male or female?” On the lower end of the flute’s barrel is painted a Green Man associated with the steeply wooded sides of the Esk. The Green Man has two faces. When you invert the Flute there is a second Green Man. The Seal and the Green Man symbolise Sea and Land, the creatures in it and the trees upon it, united by the air that flows through the Flute to produce its deeply resonant haunting voice, changed by the air from a decorated piece of wood into a musical instrument.
Tony then noticed an unusual flute on Geoff Norman’s Uguna flutes’ site which had an open mouthpiece and was said to be on a based on an old Lakota design. It is called the ‘Bumblebee’ because another flute maker measured it with a pair of Vernier Calipers, put the measurements into his computer programme and declared that it wouldn’t work. The Bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly, according to aeronautical engineers. Well, both this Flute, made of Italian Spruce, and the Bumblebee can fly. This High D Flute has a loud voice that soars like a lark.
Geoff Norman came by the design in a museum in Italy where he was shown a flute bought back to Italy in the year 1630 by a Count Beltrami. Geoff was invited to play it, the first person to play it for 300 years. Tony now has two other flutes of this design, a C made from Sycamore wood that allows one to bend notes, and so plays well as a jazz instrument, and a Low D in yellow cedar.
In May 2009 Tony Morris demonstrated a couple of flutes in the Little Owl Series for David Cartwright of Second Voice Flutes at a Mind Body Spirit Fair and bought the High E made of Virginian flame maple. This was a five holed flute designed for children and starters. The fact that it took hardly any breath to play made him suggest that it might help asthma sufferers. David’s reply was interesting. He said that, “The asthma thing is a very sane idea”. He came round to it some time ago, when he found one of the pro flute players he knew smoking cigarettes between performances and was told that it was only playing the flutes that kept him able to breathe properly. David also said that it had certainly made a dramatic difference to a person he knew who, after a bout of meningitis had knocked out his ability to control his breathing, had found that the flutes had gone some way to re-training the damaged parts of the brain. This was the main reason that David developed the air delivery systems that he uses in his flutes. So, flute playing really can help those with breathing difficulties.
At this time I also asked David Cartwright if he could make me a low drone flute. The result was that he made a new design tuned to Low C. I eventually took delivery on the day following the Winter Solstice 2010. It is a fantastically versatile flute as you can hear by listening to 'Wood with Water', Snow Walk' and 'Chasing the Drone' on the Home page. The flute is made of English Rippled Alder from Dartmoor with a fluid, mellifluous voice that can be coaxed to growl and purr. I often see salmon leaping in the Esk at Whitby in North Yorkshire where I live so the double chimney block carries a beatiful carving of a salmon leaping up a water rush. A picture of the flute and the technical details of its making can be seen on the Second Voice website
The story continues. David Cartwright has created another special flute which plays, in simple terms, Arabic and Persian scales. It is a very versatile flute as one can also use it to play along with Blues and Jazz. Mine has a totemic block of a Jacob Sheep and so I refer to it as my Jacob Flute. The wood is young Spalted Beech with a Cherry Wood shoe and the block is Birch. A picture of the flute and the technical details of its making can be seen on the Second Voice website .