Flute circle


A flute circle is an organization of musicians which focuses on the Native American flute.
Flute circles typically meet periodically to engage in educational and recreational
activities surrounding the instrument.
Most flute circles offer instruction on the Native American flute,
especially for flutists who are new to the instrument.
Many flute circles have a facilitator with experience in group music facilitation and
humanistic music education
to structure the activities and the music-making.
This use of the Native American flute in community music is notably different from traditional uses of the
instrument for courtship, hunting, or ceremony.
This new use of the instrument has not been without controversy,
and flute circles are generally advised to use the instrument in a respectful manner because of
these considerations.
Flute circle participants may span a wide range of experience and training in music —
from professionals to novice flutists or enthusiasts
of the Native American flute.
Many flute circles focus on raising the level of musicality of the participants
across a range of levels of musical experience using basic song forms, music improvisation, and techniques of experiential music education.
These techniques include duet and ensemble improvisation forms that include drones, ostinato patterns, and call and response forms.
Facilitation forms include traveling ensembles, showcasing, segmenting, and general conducted improvisations —
techniques that are shared with other community music structures such as
drum circles.
While some flute circles focus on aspects of indigenous cultures
and indigenous peoples of the Americas,
they do not typically relate to a single culture or tribe.
Flute circles can also organize events for participants to play at events,
festivals, school presentations,
or in service settings such as senior centers, elder facilities, and group homes.
Flute circles have also engaged in their own concerts, produced music albums,
and broadcast live music performances.

Community music

Flute circles are one type of community music gathering. Other types include drum circles, community choirs, facilitated dance, and community orchestras. However, Mary Jane Jones argues in her thesis that flute circles have particular attributes not found in other types of community music gatherings:

Organizations

Several national organizations have formed to provide support to local flute circles:
A roster of registered flute circles is maintained by WFS
and FTF.

Statistics

As of March 13, 2016, the roster of flute circles in this article listed 189 organizations in 9 countries, including flute circles in 44 States of the United States and 5 Provinces of Canada.

Historical

The chart below depicts the historical number of flute circles registered with the WFS and its predecessor organization, the International Native American Flute Association .
The data for years prior to 2016 were gathered on March 13, 2016 from historical WFS and INAFA web pages provided by the Wayback Machine.
The data for 2016 and 2017 were gathered from the live WFS web site on March 4, 2016 and January 3, 2017, respectively.
The data point for each year was taken on the first date in the year that the respective web site was updated. Data for the years 2012-2014 represents the shift in organizations from INAFA to WFS.
The data roughly agrees with the Jones thesis, which reported 115 flute circles on the INAFA roster in 2010.

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fontsize:M pos: text:Historical number of flute circles registered with WFS / INAFA near the beginning of each year

However, rosters of flute circles maintained by WFS and INAFA only represent flute circles that are registered with those organizations; it is not known how many flute circles exist worldwide.

List of flute circles

This list of flute circles, sorted alphabetically by location.
Only the name and location are provided in this list, along with a link.
The link may be to a Wikilink, a web address, a link to social media, or reference to one or more web sites that maintain rosters of information about specific
flute circles.
Please note that inclusion in this list does not represent any endorsement or certification of the organization that is listed.
You may click through the link or visit the referenced roster to see details for that organization:

Australia

Alberta

Alaska

Georgia Flute Circle of Atlanta

Idaho