Raffaele Funky Flute

Sorry for being so out of the loop lately, but I have been traveling to remote places in Sicily-Italy to visit my parents, relatives and old friends. I won’t bother you guys with the crazy fun I had over there (check this place out! - I also managed to play at a wedding O.o) but I am going to tell you something about my little research on House Music Fluting that is always ongoing.

House Music has often some very repetitive patterns, melodies and harmonies that make this kind of music suitable for dancing. However, this “lack” of variety poses some specific challenges to the soloist who tries to improvise on it. If, on the one hand, it is easy not to play “wrong” notes, because often just a few chords are involved, on the other hand it is VERY easy to end up being boring. When the drive doesn’t come from harmony, the tendency is to loosen up and become – yes there is no other word for it – boring.

The job of the flutist is to keep the interest alive even in such a simple harmonic context. How?
Here are some strategies I use that I picked around (from my jazz teacher Umberto Petrin and from this book) and that I use regularly:

Create harmonic variety by playing “outside” notes to slip in and out of the main harmony. This way we can create a dissonance that, if resolved, generates interest. Example. Say you are playing on Gm, say you are using a Bb pentatonic to improvise on a section of the tune: you can always go “out” of the Gm harmony and play, for instance, a B pentatonic. This creates a dissonance that will make listeners twist their heads. But you can’t stick with the “outside” harmony for too long, because it will soon sound just wrong, and people will twist their head back again with disappointment. You always need to go back to the “inside” scale (Gm, in this case) to resolve. After creating some tension (dissonance – B) it is good (i.e. necessary) to release it by coming back to the original chord. It takes some practice, some experiments (not everything works – more on this on future blog posts), but you will be rewarded by the endless possibilities this little trick opens up. I am always trying new things this way.

Take advantage of the repetitiveness and turn it to your side. Individuate a place in the tune with a build. Come up with a cool lick (three notes is enough) and repeat it obsessively along with the music. Start low and then get progressively louder till the end of the build where you will be free of busting out the coolest things your breath can possibly produce ☺

When I get a little more organized in terms of equipment I’ll post some video samples. Meanwhile, if somebody tries this out, I’d like to hear from him/her to see how it goes.

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