Musical Instruments from all over the World.

Roots and Flutes is a presentation - lasting around an hour - which is popular in schools, including nurseries and additional needs, and community venues. It tours several times a year, as well as being available for individual visits.

Roots and Flutes is the result of a life-long fascination with the kind of music-making that uses the simplest and cheapest of means, and part of my ideal is to encourage children (and adults) to explore the sounds of free and inexpensive instruments.

For thousands of years, people have taken materials like clay, wood, horn and animal skin to make wonderful, haunting music. Roots and Flutes brings a range of these instruments into the spotlight, demonstrating their huge variety of sounds, exploring their origins and history, looking at how they are made and how they work, and telling some of the legends and folk tales that are attached to them: for example how Pan discovered his pipes, the origin of the Lakota courting flute, and the story of the magical horn that Potter Thompson found in the cave under Richmond Castle.

No two performances of Roots and Flutes are exactly the same. I aim to respond to the particular interests of a group and to current school projects; but here are some of the instruments you might expect to see and hear:

• percussion, ranging from scallop shells, stones and seed-pods to horn rattle, food bowl drum and slit drum.
• clay ocarinas of all sizes (including the giant, green Granny) shaped like birds, animals and reptiles.
• panpipes, notch flutes, penny whistles, recorders (including the smallest ever made), native American flutes, and medieval wind instruments like the cornamuse and the gemshorn.
• a variety of rainmakers, including the Mexican serpent, and a graphic demonstration of how the original cactus models were constructed.
• bull-roarer, ox horn, conch shell, jaw harp and folk harp, mbira, bagpipes, snorrie bone, concertina and melodeon, and a special appearance from James and Horace the Dancing Men.
• Roots and Flutes presents instruments from places as far apart as Sweden, Peru, Mongolia, Australia and Scotland. It has opportunities for hands-on experience and can be used as a starting point for project work (see Education Projects).

For more information about performances or touring schedules please get in touch with me at one of the contacts below.

Here I am playing the ox horn, a great favourite in the show.