Paul Venable
I live and work in the mountains of Colorado. I have been playing the Native American flutes for over 20 years. During that time I wanted to do more than play the flute so I started studying the construction of the flute. Crafting these magical instruments by hand became a hobby of mine. I have recently devoted all of my time to making flutes. The majority of the work involved in creating these instruments is done by hand. I carve the sound mechanism with a chisel. The exterior of the flute is finished after a considerable amount of hand sanding. The playing holes are burned in to the wood in the traditional manner. All of my flutes are tuned to a pentatonic minor key with an electronic tuner. It’s called concert tuning.
I make flutes from a variety of woods but one of my favorite materials is from the heart of the Rockies. I go out to the forest in search of Aspen trees that have died but not fallen over. We call them standing dead trees. Trees such as these have been dried by mother nature and lend them selves very well to being crafted in to flutes. Wood like this is not commercially available and I do not know of any one else that is doing what I do. My Aspen flutes are truly unique.
