Michael Graham Allen Anasazi Rim-Blown Flute, Bb

Signed MGA, marked Bb, dated 2013 and numbered 950, burned into the wood alongside the leather tie. A rim blown Anasazi style flute in a warm, close-grained wood, with pyrographed bands of triangles at three points along the body and leather ties at each end.

An Anasazi flute is played by covering roughly seventy percent of the open end with the lips and directing the breath across the exposed rim. The technique takes some getting used to, and producing a first note can take anywhere from an hour to a week. The type is known from four flutes excavated at Broken Flute Cave in northern Arizona in 1931, tree ring and radiocarbon dated to roughly 620 to 670 CE, each with six finger holes.

Comes with a High Spirits hard tube case and a cloth drawstring bag.

About the Maker

Michael Graham Allen has been a professional flute maker since the mid 1970s, researching, building and reintroducing the ancient flutes of North America. He reproduces the Anasazi flutes from measurements of the original artifacts taken by Dr Richard Payne, and Flutopedia credits him as the first modern maker to produce replicas of the Broken Flute Cave instruments. He is also half of the recording duo Coyote Oldman, formed with Barry Stramp in the early 1980s, whose albums did a great deal to bring these instruments to a wider audience.