At 21-9/16” in length, with a 1” bore diameter, this flute is from my “crouching coyote” series. …. Just kidding, I don’t have a crouching coyote series. I just don’t like tall fetish blocks. I tried one, and mine looked like a prairie dog. Overall, this was a very complex piece of wood, at times too hard, or too soft.The mouthpiece consists of dyed/stabilized box elder burl, between layers of Macassar Ebony, capped with this maple. The fetish is cut from this same material, bonded to a base of Oklahoma red cedar.
Beginning at the top of the mouthpiece, inlay includes 4mm abalone cabs flanking a 5x7mm Lightning Ridge Australian dome cut boulder opal. The sides of the flute are accented with 25mm disks of box elder burl into which I’ve placed 12mm abalone cabs, and 4.8mm dome cut solid Australian fire opals chosen specifically for their blue/green fire. Moving to the top of the flute, the area forward from the fetish includes an 11x15mm, 5.4ct. dome cut natural Peruvian blue opal, while the finger holes are accented with four 4mm and one 8mm abalone cabs. Lastly, the fetish is inlaid with two 8mm quartz capped matching abalone disks to the tail, and a 5.2mm solid Australian fire opal to the rear, with no purpose other than to give you folks something nice to look at while playing. Further, two 2.3mm faceted African black diamonds are set as eyes. As is typical of burlwood, this flute had two burl voids. A small void at the mouthpiece was filled with powdered Sleeping Beauty turquoise, and a void in the sound chamber was filled with 22kt. gold….. Sometimes I feel like I’m channeling a dentist. I also included a removable wrap of South Dakota prairie rattlesnake skin, mostly because the color complemented the box elder burl.
The flute was tuned at 72.8 degrees F, at 60% humidity, and I rate the tonal characteristics at about a 7 on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being a clear ringing voice typical of the hardest woods. Very surprising for maple in general, and more so for spalted burl.