Black History of the Fula #Flute - Episode 94

In this episode of "Not Just Music," Duan shares the history and origins of the Fula Flute. Since it's an African instrument, it seemed only natural to incorporate it into this month's Black History Month topic. As Duan explains, the Fula Flute is traditionally played by Fula shepherds, who use it to communicate with each other over long distances. Duan demonstrates what the Fula Flute sounds like and shows us how to use it in music production. There are several interesting techniques he shares, such as how to get a "flute choir" effect. This is just part one, so stay tuned to see how the story unfolds.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
What's going on? It's your boy Duann Bereno from Not Just Music Podcast. Thank you for joining us another week. Let's go

(00:07):
What's going on? It's your boy Duann Bereno from Not Just Music Podcast and I'm back with another black history moment
Here we go. The first thing I want to talk about is the Fula Flute. The Fula Flute is a
Also known as the Tamban
Likely originated from the Fula people who lived throughout West Africa with large populations in

(00:31):
Guinea and Mali. Their flutes are also used in the traditional music of the Malinque people in
Guinea as well.
One thing I want to talk about
with this flute is a lot of people
if you hear this flute is very very very similar in sound to

(00:51):
you know a basic flute, but it has more of a hollow sound to it in a sense of
but of course, you know we put our own spin on flutes as
musicians and
producers and people who you know create music we've started to kind of stretch how we
want a

(01:11):
flute to sound
so as I said, I'm starting to do things different. So one thing I want to do differently is
start implementing music into
pods now. So the first thing I want to do is play a flute
just to give you a vibe of what I'm going for with the music that

(01:33):
I'm creating here. It's kind of a has a
Afro vibe to it. So, you know, it's I'm basically giving the flute its own
where it's coming from history and
implementing the times like this
implementing the times of now which they've considered Afro
Beats, of course, they call it Afro Beat, but put in a little spin with all of this, you know just to have some fun

(01:58):
Let's listen to the flute

(02:20):
Let's hit it again

(02:41):
And as you can tell with these flutes a lot of this stuff is like really really really rich
sounding, you know, in
Africa you listen to a lot of different music you really hear a lot of flutes
and drums, of course, you know, maybe
Of course a lot of different instrument elements when it comes to percussion there as well

(03:05):
But we'll get into that in a later pod
But again for right now the flute is what I'm speaking on but again has a very rich sound
And it's very it has a very you can be very emotional an emotional sound with it as well
Coming from it. It's very but I say again, it's very rich and sounding

(03:27):
But what I wanted to do is create an element
To go along with the vibe of this flute, right?
So let's come back over here. I actually went as far as to sing all of these
Parts to this

(03:49):
To this song
You know just to give it
Of course, you already heard the flute to give it a vibe of to stay in that flute vibe because actually I created the flute first
So let's play this so you can hear what's going on here

(04:13):
Play it again
I
Sung each one of those each one of those I saw
Um, I have an alto part basically just look at I have an alto part

(04:36):
Three alto parts three sopranos three tenors. I sung each in every one of those
I wanted to give it a very big vibe, but at the same time keep it
Give it that coral vibe that a lot of musicians
Can't implement from a VST, you know, it's hard that you can you it's a lot of good VSTs out of here

(05:00):
It's a lot of good plugins out here
But it's even better when you can do it on your own
It just makes it that more realistic. It gives it that much more feeling
But again, that's what I wanted to implement along with this flute

(05:21):
So to keep these short
The next episode that I do we're gonna go in depth with the beat a little more
But again, we're still focusing around the full of flute
Again, I hope you enjoy
What we're bringing now it's gonna be a little newer a little different

(05:42):
But more music driven because it is not just music podcast
It just took a while to get to it because I wanted to build a rapport and understanding the
That it's a black history
based
podcast that
Once I want it to be something that we can remember and some things that we didn't know and how we implement those things

(06:06):
And how we implement those things into today's time. So again, I'm your boy Duann Barrino, Not Just Music Podcast and I'm out.