Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs and by the National Endowment for the Arts and Viewers Like You [Native American Flute Music] Flute maker Marlon Magdalena shares the spiritual and historical significance of indigenous flutes, revealing how he brings their spirit to life through breath and song.

[Classical Guitar Music] Classical guitarist and professor Douglas Rubio reflects on his lifelong journey with the guitar, bringing the sounds of Spain and the Beatles into the heart of classical music education.

It's all ahead on Colores!

[Native American Flute Music] THE SPIRIT OF FLUTES >> Faith: So, Marlon, thank you so much for joining us again on Colores, to talk about the flutes that you make, and thank you for bringing them as well.

And, you hand made most of these flutes, am I right?

>> Marlon: Yeah.

So, I made most of these flutes here.

And again, you're welcome for having me here.

>> Faith: So, what led you to making flutes?

>> Marlon: So, about back in 2007 -- I actually started playing flute after hearing them at an event back in Jemez Pueblo, where I'm from.

They had a powwow going on during Memorial Day weekend, and there's a seller there that was flutes, but I didn't see them at I heard the sound of the flut that's what drew me towards that that vendor booth, and he had flutes there.

I just fell in love with the sound and had to buy one of flutes and since then, I just started collecting started doing more research on the different types of flutes And then eventually, about a year later I started making them.

>> Faith: So, you're going to demonstrate a couple of the types of flutes that you've brought today along with you.

Which ones do you want to start with?

>> Marlon: Probably with this one?

>> Faith: Okay, the bone flutes.

Ooh, I'm excited for that.

>> Marlon: Yeah, so, bone flutes most likely started off with local, more easily available, material like reeds.

Reeds grow along the river.

And I do have some, some examples of those.

And the reeds are kind of like bamboo but they're hollow.

They have little sections, and the people are able to make whistles and flutes out of those reeds.

I have one of those here.

[Flute Music] And have a little piece of leath attached to the top here.

And this is where the sound is produced.

So eventually, as more and more people started making these types of flutes and whistles.

Other types of materials started being used, like the Eagles, even cranes or herons or some of the hawks, people used the bones from those birds because bird bones are hollow.

And so some of the more common were made from types eagle bones and I have an example here, made out of an immature bald eagle and actually made this back in 2013.

My dad had just received an eagle for religious purposes, because you have to be a member of a federally recognized tribe, to even order an eagle because it is illegal to own or have one in your possession without a permit.

And so I was able to create this here, along with the other one that I have in my pouch.

They're from the same eagle, and I was able to figure out what to put on the inside.

It's basically a glue made out of piñon sap and ashes or charcoal.

And so I'm able to melt that and on the inside here to create this flute.

[Flute playing] So this is the flutes.

I do have a, a whistle here.

And these whistles were meant to smaller birds or like, springtime birds.

[Flute playing] So that's what these were used primarily to create and imitate the songs of the birds during the springtime, to bring about the warmer weather So that way, you know, people can start planting because it is around that time in the springtime when people start to, to grow things or to plant things.

>> Faith: And I wanted to talk about the block flutes and how do they compare?

>> Marlon: So some of the flutes here are a different type.

They're most commonly known as Native American flutes or Native American style flutes, but that could be any type of flute that Native Americans make and there's all types of flutes.

So I usually just call them two chamber block flutes or just block flutes for short.

And they kind of come from probably the bone flutes or even a different type of flute that I have here, which is kind of a precursor, I believe, to the block flutes.

This one has two chambers.

It's made out of reed, and there's two holes here in the bottom, but you need to put your finger on top of one of the holes to be able to produce the sound.

[Flute playing] And if you didn't have your finger here the air just escapes, so there's no sound.

So eventually people will start to put pieces of leather like I did with this flute here.

This piece of leather here.

And eventually people will use pieces of wood and kind of, I think they kind of evolve into what we call the native style flute or the block flutes.

So instead of a piece of leather you put a piece of wood, a flat piece of wood here.

And that way you can just blow through this and here the sounds produced here.

It's one I made from a yucca stock, a soap tree yucca.

[Flute playing] >> Faith: And they're called love flutes right?

Why is that?

>> Marlon: So they're sometimes courting flutes or love flutes.

And there's a lot of stories that surround that.

But the idea behind it is a person will make a flute and use it to create music, to draw the attention of another person.

So that way we try to make them fall in love with you.

And there are plenty of stories here in the southwest as well.

So you do get love flutes, courting flutes.

Many cultures, not just, here in the southwest, but a lot plains and, the eastern tribes too have those types of stories.

>> Faith: Wow and they're easier to play than the rim blown flutes right?

Can you talk a little bit about the rim blown flutes?

I was excited about that one too.

>> Marlon: So rim blown flutes are actually an older type of flutes The bone flutes that I mentioned you see a lot of them coming out from different sites, different villages that date back to about the 13, 1400s.

There were some flutes found in Arizona that date back to around the 600s.

And this type of flew is the rim blown flute.

I have an example here of a replica of one of those flutes found in Arizona.

This is probably one of the longer examples.

It's about 29 inches long, six holes.

More towards the bottom here, but these are rim blown flutes.

These require a different type of technique to be able to play a sound and make music.

And it's a lot different from those block flutes, because the block flutes, you can just blow into them the sounds produced, with the way it's made.

But these ones here just hollow tubes and then you blow a certain way on to the rim.

That's why they're called rim blown flutes.

And I actually had to teach myself how to play this type of flutes.

It's a very long, very narrow type of flute.

So there's only certain techniques that you can actually use to make sounds from this.

So those two techniques, one I had to, or both of them I actually learned off the internet, YouTube on how Egyptian Nays or Arabic Nay and that technique is a side blowing technique.

So you kind of hold it to the side and blow on to the side of the rim.

[Flute playing] The next technique took me a little bit longer to learn, because there weren't very many resources at the time.

This going back to 2008.

It's a, technique used on, Persian Nay flute from Iran, and it's called the inter dental technique.

[Flute playing] So you're putting this front part here between the two front teeth.

Your tongue's laying on the back and you're blowing kind of towards you to the right And that technique, that technique took me a little bit longer to learn, because it was a very unique type of blowing technique compared to some of the other ones that, I guess you're more used to.

>> Faith: The interesting thing about the ones that were found, I think, was that you couldn't figure out how they were like, put together I think I remember you talking about the theory of how they were made traditionally.

>> Marlon: So a lot of those first original flutes they weren't made in two separate peices like how I would make flutes.

Now I use this technique using and gouging out and carving two pieces of wood and then gluing it back together Some of the older flutes, you don't see a glue line or you don't see it attached in any way.

So there is a tree that grows here in the southwest called, elderberry And when you look at that tree, you cut it down, it has a soft center.

So they're probably using that tree to make these fairly long flutes because you don't see a glue line you don't see them attached in any way.

So they're drilling them out either with an arrow or with the stick until they get them hollowed out So that way they can create a flute.

And you do see a lot shorter ones as well.

You know, these this is an example of a long one And they did make smaller ones.

This is a smaller rim blown flutes It's a replica of one they found archeologists found in Utah, in southern Utah.

And compared to the other ones, a lot shorter.

But it's played the same way.

Some modern pueblos still use this type of flutes.

Even after 1400 years later, they pretty much remain the same style and the same configuration, at least for the holes.

>> Faith: And which, which one is your favorite flute to play?

>> Marlon: I like playing the rim blown flutes.

I think it's just because it's a different technique and it's a very low sounds can be very meditative when you just play the lowest notes just by itself, just that long sound, that long note I mean, for performances or for any other times I like to play some of the block flutes, sometimes a low sounding block flutes It just has that sound that I just really like.

>> Faith: Do you think you can play little piece for us today on whichever one you feel like you love the most and you want to show us?

>> Marlon: Yeah.

I'll play, yeah, I like using this one here It's made out of Alaskan yellow and I've carved a, crane head on the bottom.

And this one one, one of the ones that I made.

Yeah.

So the song, I'll play a short version of this song.

I usually play it at the beginning of performances It's kind of welcoming everyone there, it's this sort of a the start of the flute, performance or flute ceremony, if you want to call it that.

It's called Welcoming the Buffaloes and it is based off of a buffalo dance song that we have at Jemez where we welcome the Buffalo Dancers into the Plaza at the beginning of the dance.

And so it's based off of that melody.

[Flute playing] That's “Welcoming The Buffaloes.

>> Faith: That is amazing.

You do a lot of educational work with these flutes and do demonstrations of them.

Why is it important for you to share these flutes, their music and their histories with others, especially with like the younger generations?

>> Marlon: So I do like to do a of educational work, through my job with the Jemez historic site, I'm an educcator there, and part of my job is to New Mexico, to the schools or to go around New Mexico, to the schools or to events different organizations and give presentations and educate people because, in Jemez Pueblo, these instruments, from the flutes to drums, even to our voices, they're all a part of who we are as Jemez people, because we use them in our daily lives, in our ceremonies, in our dances.

And we believe once we start using them we're giving life back into these pretty much inanimate objects.

We're giving life to these flutes and, drums or any of the sound makers that we use during our dances.

So it's not just music, but it's also we're giving a part of ourselves through the music, through the flutes and basically just giving life back into these flutes.

>> Faith: That makes me think of the flute spirit.

I've heard you mention that before when you're performing.

Can you talk about what that means to you when you're performing and how you prepare for that?

>> Marlon: So when I perform, when I use a flute, I'm putting a part of myself, I'm using my breath, and I basically the flutes the sounds the sound is the voice of the flutes.

So I'm giving it a voice.

That's music.

That sound is either calling in spirits rain spirits or any other types of spirits to the flutes.

And so I see it not just as a performance, but, sort of calling in the spirits and using the flute spirit because these inanimate objects have a life once you start using them.

Flutes are very powerful instruments because of what they're used for.

A lot of the ceremonies that they're used for, not just back at home, but in other places as well.

They're used to call in the spirits.

They're used to call in the rain and so they can be very powerful It's just part of our way of life.

Unlocking the mystery.

>> Rubio: I grew up in in Southern California, but where people think of it as being, sunshine and beach.

I grew up in a mountain resort, and so there was a lot more snow than we get in the North Country there.

And, and went to college at the University of California at Irvine and then grad school for my master's and doctorate at the University of Southern California.

The first time I ever saw a classical guitar was on television, I think, on The Ed Sullivan Show.

And there was just something about it that just captivated me.

And at the time, my parents were thinking of moving to Spain for a few years, for so my father could take a job.

And, and they said I could take classical guitar lessons if we moved to Spain.

But even before I started taking lessons, it was just a a real puzzle.

I remember once sitting in my uncle's small bedroom while he was away one day, and, he had a guitar.

He said I could play, and I picked it up.

And here was this mystery of, of of strings and notes and things, and I didn't know a thing about it.

And but I thought, one of these days I'm going to unlock this mystery and, hasn't quite happened totally yet, because it's a very complex instrument, but I think I'm well on my way by now.

I love teaching, I love working with students at this age group, young adults, and to see them come into the program as freshmen, where they're just really even though they're technically adults, they're still boys and girls.

And then in that four years to see their development, not just musical development, of course, but just their personal development to graduate.

And now they're men and women.

And I really love that about my job.

So I think I have the perfect job.

I get to deal with the greatest music ever written, I get to deal with guitar.

And they also let me teach courses in the music of the Beatles, which is my second love after the guitar.

There are many students these days who are very, excited to find out that we have a course on the Beatles, and sometimes I teach it for non-music majors as a general education course, and other times I teach it for music majors as an upper division music history course, so they can take a class in Beethoven, or Bach, or the Beatles and these guys up here now, or have their arms out or so.

Does that mean anything to you guys?

And in fact, I find when I teach this online, students will often tell me that their parents are sneaking on to the website that we use, and reading all of my material and kind of watching the class, over their kids shoulders because they're so interested.

Also, only now that I've gotten older at this, sometimes it's they tell me it's the grandparents who are doing that rather than the parents I perform in, in a number of different ways.

A lot of what I do is to solo a classical guitar.

I suppose people think of classical guitar, and they think of it mostly as a solo unaccompanied instrument, kind of like a piano soloist or something.

But I happen to play a lot of chamber music as well with other instruments.

So like last semester, I played a recital of clarinet and guitar music with one of my colleagues here at Crane, and my wife is, outstanding flutist.

And so we play a lot of flute and guitar music, and we're known as the Rubio duo.

We've been playing together since before we got married.

So, but we're also with a lot of other instrumentalists and singers as well.

Classical guitar is one of the great instruments in terms of repertoire, because we have a repertoire going all the way back from the Renaissance up to the present day.

So some of my composers that I like, the English, Elizabethan composer John Dowland is, outstanding.

But of course, the biggest of all is Bach.

He composed for an instrument called the lute, which is very similar to the guitar.

And so of all the real major composers in classical music, he's the one who, has composed music that we can legitimately call our own.

The piece I'll be playing today is not actually a guitar piece.

It's a piano piece by a Spanish composer named Isaac Albeniz.

And Albeniz was, a huge fan of, Hungarian composer Franz List.

And so try to write in that very European style.

But there was another Spanish musicologist who convinced him to try to write music that was more Spanish.

And so he switched and started writing very Spanish music, primarily for unaccompanied piano.

But if you're going to write Spanish music, you're going to be incorporating the sounds of Spain, which is the sounds of the guitars.

So much of his music is very guitar like, and when we take it from piano and arrange it for the guitar, it sounds very much like it was intended for that instrument.

[ Asturias (Leyenda) plays on guitar] [ Asturias (Leyenda) plays on guitar] The award winning arts and culture series Colores is now available on the PBS app, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and at night, pbs.org.

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Funding for Colores was provided in part by New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts and Education Endowment Fund, and the Nevada E Walker Fund for KNMETV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation.

New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

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