Raymond Creasy recently became a new member of the Arkansas Craft Guild with his wooden flutes. He grew up in the rural Tennessee traditions of woodworking and music. Around him were family playing folk, bluegrass and gospel music. He has been a graphic artist and a songwriter since his teenage years in Memphis. He started making his own banjos in the 70s and has made 3 over his lifetime. He made his own mandolin, mountain dulcimer, box and tongue drums, and reconstructed and repaired guitars and fiddles over the years.
Raymond played the recorder on his original recordings in the past and enjoyed the sound of Native American wooden flutes. He wanted to turn his own wood supply milled on his homemade sawmill into turned wooden flutes, starting to make flutes about 25 years ago. With the help of his brother Ron, they developed the sizes of turned tubes, both the diameter of the sound hole and the length of the scales, determining the placement of the holes through trial and error with a chromatic tuner, and reading books. Since Raymond played Celtic music with his wife Sue, he added the 6 hole flutes for the major scales. Experimentation was their method, attempting a double flute, one tone being a drone, while the other played the melody. Making a musical instrument is truly bringing the inanimate wood to life.
He takes great care in carving, tuning and voicing each flute. Flutes are made from Ozark red cedar, wild cherry, walnut, with a sprinkling of exotic woods for design interest. Friends would donate some materials, including Spanish cedar left over from a custom window shutter build, a wood that has wonderful resonant properties. Each type of wood has a tonal quality affected by the density of the wood. The carved totem or animal shape used over the sound holes is called the fipple, (from the French) which has evolved over time with Raymond opting for a more abstract shape. He also decided to glue the fipple on rather than simply tie it on with leather as placement of the fipple is key to creating a clear tone. The Creasys recorded a flute CD together called Shamrock Sampler, featuring several styles of music they enjoy playing on the flute, traditional Celtic, Native American, jazz and blues originals.
With each flute comes a fingering chart for each key including simple instructions on how to play it. Smaller, higher tones include D major, C major, suitable for small hands, with A minor being a popular blues key to play with others, and the lowest tones with meditative sounds come from the largest flutes in F#minor for long fingers. Shamrock Studio is Raymond's own home recording studio, where he and Sue have made 15 of their own original CDs, remastered some of Raymond's earlier LPs and cassettes to digital, as well as recorded a few for other groups and individuals. His flutes are now available at the Arkansas Craft Gallery, as well as several of his CDs.
Visit the flute page at Raymond's website for more history of the flute and photos.
His artist roster page here on the Guild website.
