North American Indigenous Flute Workshops using the Kevin Locke Curriculum:

To partner with the Patricia Locke Foundation in bringing Indigenous Flute workshops to schools, please click below!
Check out an Indigenous Flute workshop and participant impressions here:
What is unique about the North American Indigenous Flute?
North American Indigenous Flute is an authentic creation to instrumentalize a very distinct vocal tradition, which has standardized formulaic rules of composition and is widespread over a large geographic area including; the eastern woodlands, the Great Lakes, the northern and southern plains and extending west of the Rockies. The vocal genre from which all flute melodies are derived concern all aspects of romance. Because this unique vocal genre is a highly evolved poetic form which weaves inspired vocabulary, idioms and grammatical constructions into highly entertaining literary expressions, it often has outlived the flute playing tradition designed to portray it. All of the traditional flutists who brought this uniquely North American tradition into the 20th century based their flute playing on this interestingly diverse yet uniform vocal genre; Belo Cozad (Kiowa), John Turner (Omaha), Poweshiek (Meskwaki), Grover Wolf Voice (Cheyenne), Jasper Blow Snake (Ho Chunk), John Colhoff (Lakota), Richard Fool Bull (Lakota), Dan Red Buffalo (Lakota), Dave Marks (Dakota), Lucille Kapayou (Meskwaki) - to name just a few. The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded 4 fellowships in its history for knowledge keepers associated with the Indigenous flute; Doc Tate Nevaquaya (Comanche), Everett Kapayou (Meskwaki), Bryan Akipa (Dakota) and Kevin Locke (Lakota/Ojibwe). Kevin Locke worked tirelessly to create a positive awareness of this instrument and especially its distinction from what is known as the Native American flute; invented circa 1980 by Michael Graham Allen based on a Japanese shakuhachi flute tuning. Songs created on this instrument are mostly improvisational. The tuning system of this 80’s creation is not Indigenous nor does it originate from North America, but yet mainstream audiences erroneously confuse the Native American flute with the original instrument.
How does Patricia Locke Foundation promote the North American Indigenous Flute?
During his lifetime, Kevin Locke created a beginner level curriculum (referred as the Kevin Locke Curriculum) to teach this instrument in schools with affordable pre-drilled flutes that can be easily assembled and put in the hands of children and youth. The vision is to make the instrument available and accessible to as many young people as possible and facilitate learning the fingering technique and unique musical style of this instrument in a pedagogically sequenced curriculum. Kevin Locke co-authored the curriculum with a music educator and flutist Richard Dubé and created an efficient and successful methodology to spread the knowledge of this tradition before his passing in 2022. Patricia Locke Foundation continues the use of this methodology with ongoing collaborations with Richard Dubé (Curriculum Collaborator) and Curriculum Apprentice Artist, Doug Smarch Jr. PLF aims to raise new Curriculum artists who will take on delivering the workshops in the US and Canada, who learn “on the job” as they engage with students in workshop settings. In order to provide clarity and transparency for current and future generations, we especially need to honor those who carried this ancient tradition with integrity until they made their onward journey.
To partner with the Patricia Locke Foundation in bringing Indigenous Flute workshops to schools, please click below!