May 4, 2008                                             

1pm-4pm

Cost:$35 nonmembers/ $30 members.

Advanced registration and payment are required.
309.676.0998

The process is simple and learning to play is easy!

The Native American flute provides a peaceful, tranquil sound - for use in relaxation, mediation, and healing.  In this workshop you will be provided the basic scale - a chart of this scale - and a list of embellishments that enhance these notes to provide interest and variety to your playing. 

You do not need to read music or have a musical background to be able to play the NAF.  You will build your skills and your playing ability.  The class is presented in a flute circle format - informal - and with opportunity to practice playing the flute. 

All skill levels are welcome and at the end of this session you will be able to play something on the NAF.  Borrow a flute for the class - or bring your own - there will be flutes for sale available.  at this class -as well as a list of places flutes may be purchased through.

Instructor: Pam Greenslate – Pam has been playing the NAF for over 13 years.  Originally she was self-taught – having bought a traditionally made flute – and learning to play by experimentation with the NAF and its sounds.  In 2006 she decided to seriously study the flute – purchased a concert-tuned flute – and began taking lessons from a flute teacher in her community. 

In June of 2007 she traveled to Tarkio MT to study with the world’s foremost NAF player, R. Carlos Nakai.  Her studies with Nakai deepened her instinctual relationship with the NAF.  Nakai returned her to her traditional beginnings with the NAF – teaching that to truly play this instrument was a journey to the heart – where the player hears and learns her own song. 

On returning from Montana, Pam’s mediation/yoga teacher Swami Dharmakeerti, explained that in the culture of India the “master” teaches a student for 12 years – at which time the student is expected to move into the world and teach what she has learned.  Dharmakeerti’s charge to Pam was that for 12 years she apprenticed to the energy of the flute, which is the sound of the heart chakra, and in her 12th year of apprenticeship she found Nakai the teacher who returned her to the “song of her heart”.  And in her 13th year of study of the NAF she is to take the teachings to others in her world.

Pam was our first featured artist at Art in the Park. She wrote this article that will eventually run in River Spirit Flute Circles newsletter.

Visit Pam's website at CASA Center for Therapeutic Services