Native flute gives students a voice

Musician Vince Redhouse was having dinner at a restaurant on the Navajo Nation when he happened to overhear the conversation at the booth next to his.

Four or five teenagers were talking about a friend who had committed suicide.

"They were so matter-of-fact about it," Redhouse recalled. "It was like, 'Oh well, his number just came up.' Like it could have been any one of them."

Redhouse quickly paid his tab and left before he burst into tears.

"I thought, 'God, someone's got to help these kids,'" he said. "'This is an epidemic.'"

It wasn't until the following day it occurred to Redhouse that the person to help those kids might be him. The Filipino/Navajo Tucson resident was scheduled to demonstrate the Native flute to an assembly at St. Michael Indian School.

"The kids were very responsive," he said. "I thought, 'We're going to have a Native flute class to connect kids with their culture.' All of a sudden, it seemed imperative."

Redhouse got the blessing of the school's administration, and now he travels between Tucson and St. Michaels, Ariz., to share his unique fingering system, which allows people to play a wider range of notes than is usually possible on the Native flute.

"My students and I are the only ones who can play like this," he said, showing off his top students at a mini-concert Saturday at the Navajo Nation Museum.

Native flutes are traditionally handmade, with five holes and in no particular key. They're fine solo instruments, but any ensemble player who has tried to back one up knows how annoying it is to try to match pitch with an instrument that, well, never really is quite on pitch.

Redhouse's method allows Native flutists to play in a group, and read any piece of music.

"Once they've learned the basics of music, they can stick with the flute or go to any other instrument they want," he explained.

Redhouse himself was a classically trained jazz saxophonist before he discovered the Native flute 13 years ago, so he applied his training to his new instrument.

"I broke the stereotype of what an Indian with a Native flute can do," he said.

Redhouse has twice been nominated for a Grammy award for his Native flute records.

Why the Native flute? For Redhouse, and he hopes for his students too, the wooden instrument is a way for Navajos to connect with their culture - even though it's not a traditional Navajo instrument.

Against his parents' wishes, Redhouse's father married a Filipina woman after World War II and he moved her from the Philippines to California, where Redhouse and his siblings were born.

"There weren't that many Navajos around," Redhouse recalled. "So we started going to powwows. My dad had a drum group for 40 years. He wore his traditional Navajo clothing, but we were in feathers and porcupine quills."

Still, Redhouse never felt quite comfortable with "my Indian side." He studied silver flute and saxophone, and became the lead saxophonist with the ultra-competitive Air Force Band at the age of 18.

"My whole family was professional jazz musicians," Redhouse said. "People could say whatever they wanted to about Indians, but when we picked up those instruments, they had to respect us."

Years later, Redhouse moved to Tucson and picked up a Native flute almost on a whim.

It clicked with him instantly, he said: "This was the instrument that many tribes used to express themselves musically, to connect with nature, to call to the animals."

In addition to simple classical pieces like "Claire de Lune," Redhouse teaches traditional Plains songs like "The Dove Song," which he says actually does attract doves when you play it outside.

A former Protestant preacher, Redhouse also likes to render Christian hymns on his flute.

His unique style and choice of music could be why a recording label known for producing Native American artists sent him five CDs by another Native flutist and said, according to Redhouse, "Try to play like this guy."

"I said, 'I'm not that guy!'" Redhouse recalled. "It's annoying when even our own people want to define what an Indian should sound like."

Meanwhile, Redhouse's students are starting to develop their own styles, and that's fine with him.

"Who knows what they're going to be doing with a Native flute 10 years from now?" he said.

All he knows is that the kids seem different since they started playing.

"I see a change in them," he said. "They seem more confident. More light-hearted."

And if they ever doubt their worth, Redhouse knows what to say to them.

"I say, 'Look, I went around the world for you guys,'" he said. "I drive about 40,000 miles a year, and the circumference of the earth is only like 34,000 miles."

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