Who here plays an NAF

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Dreday
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Who here plays an NAF

Post by Dreday »

Hi who here plays a NAF? Looking to discuss things with people that are familiar with the instrument.

I have a few flutes:
Ken Light
Peter Churcher
Rob Wood
Northern Spirit
Hi4head
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by Hi4head »

You may want to check out the forums at worldflutes.net

That site is more focused on NAF.

By the way, I played NAF and Basketmaker rimblowns (Ancestral Puebloan flutes) prior to “Irish” flutes.

Chris
jimhanks
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by jimhanks »

I have a lot of NAFs. Just got a new one from Peter Churcher last week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbIu-oXlXkc

The Flute Portal mentioned by Hi4head doesn't get much traffic these days. FaceBook has several groups that are quite active. The best IMO is called Native American Flute Musicians
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Geoffrey Ellis
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by Geoffrey Ellis »

The Flute Portal does seem to be very sparsely trafficked these days, but it has an impressive archive of past discussions if you are willing to go digging. I founded the Flute Portal back in 2006 with my friend Jeff Ball (before the rise of Facebook) and ran it for eight years before handing it off to current owner Brent Haines. In it's heyday it had a few thousand members and a thriving forum that accrued a vast number of discussion threads (not like C&F, which is older and has far, far more members). Brent actually sponsors it's continued existence as a public service to keep the forum archives online because there is a lot of material there. There is still a bit of current discussion it looks like (I drop in about once a year or so) but I think most of the really substantive threads took place between 2007 and 2012 or so.

I joined a few Facebook groups at one point before I stopped going to Facebook, and I actually find the FB "group" set-up to be not particularly useful in many ways. It's not bad for asking a quick question and getting some response, but past posts become quickly buried and extremely onerous to find. I still think that the classic internet forums like C&F are a vastly superior way of having a flute community and accessing information via a searchable database. I like to support this forum format whenever possible, and for the same reason I'm a big fan of the old fashioned "home page" as a place for someone to have an online presence, versus sites like Facebook. Just a personal preference. :-)
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by jimhanks »

I agree with you Geoffrey that FaceBook is not good as a "knowledge base". I treat it as more of a "news feed" to see/hear what others in the community are up to and to get out my own activities, etc.

I also love a good forum like this, Ukulele Underground, and what Flute Portal used to be. They just seem to need a lot of care and feeding that many folks are increasingly unable or unwilling to do. And they need a certain "critical mass" to really be useful.
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Geoffrey Ellis
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by Geoffrey Ellis »

jimhanks wrote:I agree with you Geoffrey that FaceBook is not good as a "knowledge base". I treat it as more of a "news feed" to see/hear what others in the community are up to and to get out my own activities, etc.

I also love a good forum like this, Ukulele Underground, and what Flute Portal used to be. They just seem to need a lot of care and feeding that many folks are increasingly unable or unwilling to do. And they need a certain "critical mass" to really be useful.
Yes, it's that critical mass of members that creates useful discussions on a regular basis, and Facebook really drained off a lot of people from the older types of forums. And social media, while very convenient for some types of exchanges, it doesn't do much for people's attention span! I've seen that eroding over time. There is so much stimulus coming at people they have to start filtering it out, and as a consequence I think there is a lot of "skimming" without much actual reading going on. FB was the first place I had ever seen someone post the comment "TLDR" in response to another persons post. Found out it means "Too long, didn't read". What the heck? I suppose there is something to be said for candor, but my first though was "If you didn't read it, why comment at all?" But I digress :-)

I'm just glad that C&F has so much critical mass and such a long history (it's pretty much as old as the internet itself, which is pretty cool).
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by Nanohedron »

jimhanks wrote:I agree with you Geoffrey that FaceBook is not good as a "knowledge base".
Not a member myself, but I have personal stories of others not only informing me of "truth" gotten from Facebook, but actually believing that because it came from Facebook, it therefore had to be true. Some of that stuff is downright disastrous, but even more disastrous is the willingness to abandon critical thinking.
Geoffrey Ellis wrote:Yes, it's that critical mass of members that creates useful discussions on a regular basis, and Facebook really drained off a lot of people from the older types of forums.
C&F saw the effects of this drain, too. But it seems to me that most of the drain wasn't in the knowledge sector - that seems to be chugging along about the same as ever - but the Pub's activity was where we really took a hit. Not being all that sober-minded myself, I was a huge fan of the Pub in its heyday because it was so crazy fun. It's still fun, but there's just ... a lot less of it. Fortunately, the Pub has never been the core purpose of C&F.
Geoffrey Ellis wrote:And social media, while very convenient for some types of exchanges, it doesn't do much for people's attention span!
Neither does age and crankiness, I can tell you.
Geoffrey Ellis wrote:I'm just glad that C&F has so much critical mass and such a long history (it's pretty much as old as the internet itself, which is pretty cool).
And we at Chiffco® are pleased to still be able to provide these services. Hope the somewhat dated décor isn't too fusty. Which reminds me: We'll be undergoing a much-needed software update soon, and it might mean some outages - or not. We don't know. But we'll still be up and running when it's over, and we anticipate that C&F should be able to continue operating smoothly for years to come. :)
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Geoffrey Ellis
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by Geoffrey Ellis »

Nanohedron wrote: Hope the somewhat dated décor isn't too fusty.
Quite the opposite for me, really. I like the older style look. Reminds me of when the internet was a freer and more open type of place before being sectioned off into these fenced communities that sites like FB embody. Yuk. I'm shortly going to be deleting my FB page and I certainly won't look back.

But I'm actually leaning toward a more analog existence, as much as is feasible anyway. I recommend taking a peek at https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/. Lots of cool stuff in the archives.
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Nanohedron
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by Nanohedron »

Geoffrey Ellis wrote:I recommend taking a peek at https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/. Lots of cool stuff in the archives.
Totally my cup of tea. Thanks! :thumbsup:
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Geoffrey Ellis
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by Geoffrey Ellis »

Nanohedron wrote:
Geoffrey Ellis wrote:I recommend taking a peek at https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/. Lots of cool stuff in the archives.
Totally my cup of tea. Thanks! :thumbsup:
Happy to share :-) Someone showed it to me a few years back and I was enchanted. Check out the Chinese wheelbarrow...
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scottie
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by scottie »

Dreday wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 2:19 pm Hi who here plays a NAF? Looking to discuss things with people that are familiar with the instrument.

I have a few flutes:
Ken Light
Peter Churcher
Rob Wood
Northern Spirit
I play around on them on occasion. I got into building them and like that also. Working on a low E NAF at present and plan on using it in my local church band. I put my guitar away since every body and their grandma seems to play those. I will concentrate on the NAF and the banjo. Love the sound of the NAF. It has such a relaxing sound and great for removing stress that seems to be generated constantly in society these days. Was surprised to see the NAF site groups on Yahoo were shut down with all their group sites last December. I will hang out here because I have found great people to converse with and share info even in the Irish Whistle and Flute forums. I deleted my Face Book account because I do not agree with their censoring everybody with a different opinion or political view. No reason to give them money everytime I log into their site since I now consider them just another enemy.
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by fatmac »

. I still think that the classic internet forums like C&F are a vastly superior way of having a flute community and accessing information via a searchable database. I like to support this forum format whenever possible, and for the same reason I'm a big fan of the old fashioned "home page" as a place for someone to have an online presence, versus sites like Facebook.
Quite agree! :thumbsup:

Re NAF, I like the idea, but I have so many other instruments already....... :D

(But I'm still interested enough to read about them.) :)
Keith.
Trying to do justice to my various musical instruments.
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by angelablueskies »

I play and teach Native American Flute - twice a year I have an online class through the Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland (USA). It's a lot of fun! I personally *love* Jon Norris' flutes - https://jonnorrismusic.com/collections/ ... yle-flutes - and use Jon's flutes in my group classes as well. I especially enjoy teaching this instrument to adults, as it's pretty easy to learn.

Our online classes run spring and fall, and are 6 weeks meeting once weekly. You can find updates about the next series here: https://angelablueskies.com/events/
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Re: Who here plays an NAF

Post by AuLoS303 »

I have one in low E, beautiful but quiet tone. Very meditative.
https://youtu.be/WbUVqMjelUM
You can play beautiful music on an ugly flute
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