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Released in February 2024, my eleventh album is the fourth full length Flukutronic release, continuing this unique blend of world flutes, ukuleles, and electronics.
Total Playing Time 56:08
- Eaglet Aerials 4:31
- Leaving Lydia 5:27
- Cloud Rider 6:42
- Prayers for Poppy 3:56
- JD’s Blues 4:29
- First Trip Around the Sun 4:04
- Lacewing 6:13
- January Rain 5:34
- Off the Beaten Path 4:05
- Dogwood Blossoms 5:17
- Good Morning, Mr. Guff 5:50
Liner Notes/Technical Details
Eaglet Aerials
But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. -Isaiah 40:31
This song was originally composed on the Hawk Henries linden wood Native American flute. The melody was first discovered in the F setting and then I tried to see in what other settings (keys) the melody would fit on the flute. With a few minor note alterations and some tricky fingerings, I found it would work in G, A, and Bb in addition to F. I couldn’t decide on which key I liked best so decided to do them all. The name is inspired from the classic “Dolphin Dance” which also employs this idea of reusing the same phrase or motif in different keys.
A song sketch was posted with this flute and a Band in the Box backing track, but when it came time to record the full production, I decided on a different flute, an F# mango Native American style flute by Joe Loftin that had the nimbleness needed for this tune and paired well with the David Iriguchi tenor ukulele tuned to reentrant A tuning.
The uke was recorded with mic and pickup simultaneously and mixed together for the final track, the mic providing a warmer tone with the pickup adding a little extra bite. The Timber bass provides the low end.
Other flutes on the track include the D fipple xiao by Berthold Hinrichs, a low B Native American style flute by Terry Green, and a SWAM Eb Flugelhorn played with the WARBL wind controller.
Band in a Box still made an appearance, chiefly providing the RealDrums track and MIDI piano as well as some other texture bits.
Leaving Lydia
What is being left? A person? A place?
This song was composed on an Eb xiao with the “Eb” note as the root. The working title was “Eb Lydian” for a long time. But when setting the melody to chords, it was soon obvious that overall, it was not following a Lydian mode, just happened to have some #4 notes. So that’s where the final title really came from.
Another change of direction came when it was time to record. I wasn’t getting the “flow” I wanted from the xiao, so I switched to recorder, an Eb recorder from Tom de Vries. But the “Eb” setting was all wrong for that instrument and it ended up being in “G” for a concert key of Bb.
After all those machinations, the best ukulele setting turned out to be a pineapple concert long neck from Covered Bridge Ukuleles in Eb cuatro tuning. Go figure! Bass is the Timber in standard tuning.
Cello was played with the WARBL wind controller playing the SWAM Cello app on the iPad.
Drums are a mix of Band-in-a-Box parts and the Beatmap device in Reason, both feeding the same acoustic kit from Reason Drum Kits.
The only other track is an electric piano track from Band-in-a-Box.
Cloud Rider
You build your room above the clouds. You make the clouds your chariot, and you ride on the wings of the wind. – Psalms 104:3
This song was composed on the mid-A Native American flute by Hawk Henries. This flute plays best sharp of a 440 pitch reference so everything else had to accommodate this.
The ukulele was the 5-string “kiku” from David Hanson, in dGBEA “extended reentrant” tuning. This was recorded at 440 then pitch shifted up 20c in Reason before going into a complex effects chain to turn it into a “pad like” part. The real secret sauce here was the use of a transient shaper to greatly reduce the attack and increase the sustain of the uke notes. Then chorus and delay was added to pad-ify it on out.
The drums are an electronic kit in Kong Drum Designer fed by some Beatmap-programmed “loops”.
Timber bass was tuned up 20c prior to recording.
The drone part was achieved with two passes using an Ebow with a steel string baritone ukulele, the Blue Star Konablaster. Also tuned up 20c prior to recording. An octave effect was added to both passes to beef up the drone.
Prayers for Poppy
Dedicated to my father
This was composed on D xiao and a song sketch was posted with that, but for the full production, I switched to an E xiao from Geoffrey Ellis for the melody/lead, pairing it with a C# Native American style flute by Pat Haran for harmony.
Ukulele is a longneck soprano by David Hanson in reentrant B tuning with the Timber bass in support.
Band in a Box contributed RealDrums, electric piano, and strings to the Reason project.
JD’s Blues
Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again-my Savior and my God! -Psalm 42:11
Once again, this tune had a strange journey from composition to realization. It was composed on an Eb Native American flute by Jimmy Davis (hence the “JD” of the title) experimenting with a very unusual setting, C# minor, which also led to an unusual chord progression. It’s 12-bars, but definitely not a typical 12-bar blues progression. In number notation it starts in the 1 minor (i) then goes to bII7 which is a tritone substitution for the V7 (not a 4 chord as would be typical). Then bars 9-12 go 2 minor, 6 minor, 1 minor, V7alt. I have no idea how that fits with blues theory.
For instrumentation, I switched to a 7-hole G NAF by Steve Petermann as the lead flute along with an A whistle by Simon Styles for one of the middle solos. The whistle sounds bizarre as I sent it through a Leslie emulator effect, because – why not?
The ukes are the same as the previous song – Hanson longneck soprano in B tuning and Timber bass.
Band in a Box contributed keys tracks and a MIDI drum track but programmed into a Reason Drum Kits device.
First Trip Around the Sun
Dedicated to my eldest two grandchildren. Linden and Shem, written back in 2021 around their first birthdays.
Another flute substitution for the 7-hole G NAF by Steve Petermann, this time taking the place of the Hawk Henries linden A (originally commissioned in honor of Linden). Also getting a middle solo is the low C Copper Flute by Eric Raum.
The ukulele is Cocobolo Super Concert 001 in standard reentrant C tuning played two ways, a mostly strummed track and a mostly fingerpicked track. Once again the Timber bass gets the call.
Drums were achieved by programming a kit in Kong Drum Designer in Reason driven by the Beatmap player, but then “playing” Beatmap live and recording the MIDI into a Reason track. Then some manual edits in spots.
Just two other MIDI tracks for strings and electric piano.
Lacewing
Played on a Norwegian flute, maybe the name should be changed to sommerfugler
This song was originally released in 2017 as an “all EWI” track; every sound was sourced from the EWI4000s wind synth. One day while practicing xiao flute a couple years ago, it just came out of nowhere. It fits very well on the xiao so I decided I wanted to do a more normal production. I started with a sketch on D xiao back in 2021 but for the final production, I chose a unique flute by Berthold Hinrichs with a recorder-style fipple but xiao-style tuning and fingering. The only other “flute” in the song is a SWAM Eb flugelhorn app played with the WARBL wind controller.
For ukulele, I’m using a 5-string tenor by David Hanson in a unique tuning, dGBEA, what I call “extended reentrant” tuning. The bottom 4 strings are reentrant baritone (dGBE) and the top string extends the range upward. The The song is mainly in a concert key of D minor, so the Timber bass was put in drop-D tuning to keep a nice low end and not have to be continuously anchored up on the 2nd string.
Beyond that, Band in a Box once again contributed piano and strings (but not throughout) as well as most of the MIDI drum tracks feeding a custom programmed Kong kit. The hi-hats were too monotonous so I reprogrammed those from scratch with the help of Beatmap.
January Rain
The stormy wind comes from its chamber, and the driving winds bring the cold. – Job 37:9
The working title for this one was “moody blue piano” for a long time. I recorded the piano from our old upright in the key of G minor but pitch-shifted it down a semitone to fit with the other instruments I wanted to use. These included a super soprano ukulele by David Hanson in reentrant B tuning, a C# xiao from The Northern Bamboo, an F# Native American style drone flute by Dana Ross, and the low B “Cliff Dweller” flute by Brent Adams. Each flute gets a solo chorus then the xiao gets another lead with “Cliff Dweller” harmony then the F# NAF gets the final lead supported by harmony xiao.
For drums, I mostly used exported MIDI from the iPad app Reggae Drummer by Lumbeat. This was imported to Reason and used to program a Kong drum machine. I supplemented it with some Beatmap parts driving the same Kong device.
Once again, the Timber provides the bass line. There were no Band in a Box tracks used in this song.
Off the Beaten Path
A sower went out to sow. As he sowed some fell along the beaten path and soon the birds came and ate it…But some fell onto good, rich soil that kept producing a good harvest. -Mark 4:3,4,8
Another song composed on the mid-A Native American flute by Hawk Henries, taking advantage of some of its unique capabilities. As mentioned earlier, this flute plays best sharp, so the project was done to a pitch reference of A=444. However, the ukulele and bass were recorded at A=440 and electronically pitch shifted up 16 cents to match the flute. The uke is Cocobolo Ukuleles super concert #001 in standard reentrant C tuning processed through a rotary amp sim for a more “metallic” bite.
The drums were a combination of exported audio from Lumbeat’s Mid-East Drummer on the iPad along with two RealTracks drum tracks from Band in a Box (not all playing at once).
Dogwood Blossoms
The dogwood blossoms in my part North Carolina usually arrive in the first few weeks of spring, harbingers that winter is finally past and new life is here once again.
The inspiration for this piece was a chord progression discovered on Jupiter Ukuleles #71, a tenor guilele in a cuatro-inspired tuning. This transposes as an E instrument so the primary flute is an E/A xiao by Geoffrey Ellis. Also taking solos are a mid-G# Native American style flute by Kenny King and low B Native American style flute by Terry Green. Timber bass again.
Band in a Box contributed the RealDrums track as well as electric piano, pad, and strings supporting the uke.
Good Morning, Mr. Guff
Well, good morning, Mr. Guff. So happy to have made your acquaintance.
This was composed back in 2021 in honor of the birth of my 3rd grandchild Gareth, dubbed Guff by his big sister. I did a couple of sketches with E and Eb xiao, but for the final production, reworked it for C# xiao by The Northern Bamboo. This fit well with the Jupiter guilele just mentioned (in E cuatro tuning) and the David Hanson super soprano ukulele (in reentrant B tuning). The guilele was recorded simultaneously with microphone and pickup, treated slightly different and panned hard left and right, while the uke was panned dead center for a nice stereo image.
It wasn’t planned ahead of time, but the Timber bass ended up on every track on this album. The only Band in a Box track on this song were the RealDrums.
Credits
A special thank you to the following individuals for allowing me to use their work:
Native American style flute
- Joe Loftin: F#4 mango: Track 1
- Terry Green: B3 rosewod: Tracks 1,10
- Hawk Henries: A4 linden: Tracks 3,9
- Pat Haran: C#4 cedar: Track 4
- Steve Petermann: 7-hole G4 poplar: Tracks 5,6
- Dana Ross: F#4 cedar drone: Track 8
- Brent Adams: B3 POC “Cliff Dweller”: Track 8
- Kenny King: G#4 mahogany: Track 10
Xiao
- Berthold Hinrichs: D4 olive: Tracks 1,7
- Geoffrey Ellis: E4 redwood: Tracks 4,10
- The Northern Bamboo: C#4: Tracks 8,11
Recorder
- Tom de Vries: Eb4 alto castello boxwood: Track 2
Whistle
- Simon Styles: A4 mahogany: Track 5
Ukulele
- David Iriguchi: redwood tenor: Track 1
- Covered Bridge: POC tenor: Track 2
- David Hanson: 5-string cedar kiku: Tracks 3,7
- Blue Star Guitar: steel string baritone: Track 3
- David Hanson: maple super soprano: Tracks 4,5,8,11
- Cocobolo Ukuleles: Super Concert #001: Tracks 6,9
- Jonathan Dale: POC tenor guilele: Tracks 10,11
Other
- Magic Fluke: Timber fretless solid body bass: Tracks 1-11
- Andrew Mowry WARBL wind controller: Tracks 1,2,7
- Eric Raum: C4 Copper Flute: Track 6
iPad Apps
- SWAM Eb Flugelhorn: Tracks 1,7
- SWAM Cello: Track 2
- Lumbeat Reggae Drummer: Track 8
- Lumbeat Mid-East Drummer: Track 9
Jim Hanks Music 