PGM Note: a flute powered excursion in the Native American soundscape
First Broadcast: 20.05.05
Info: PGM 730
Size: 58 MB
Format: MP3 160 kbps
Anthropologists tell us that our "Paleo-Indian" ancestors have lived on this continent for up to 40,000 years. In the history of Native American musical instruments, first comes the drum, then the rattle, then bone whistles, and then flutes of bamboo, river reeds, cedar and other woods. Until the electric guitar, they're the only instruments indigenous to this country.
The native flute played different roles in different Indian cultures, from courtship to prayer ceremonies. Around a thousand years ago, the Anasazi cultures of the American southwest — ancestors of the Navajo, Ute, Hopi, Zuni, and Apache — created the beginnings of the "plains style" flute. It was revived in the 1970's. Today, they're still played in traditional ways by Native American musicians, and used for creative explorations by a new breed of ambient musicians.