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About Hawk LittleJohn
 Making flutes is a family tradition, and I've been making flutes for over thirty years.
I have been selling flutes off and on all my life, but only began doing it as a business
in the 1980's. I named my company Woodsong Flutes, but we are really just two dedicated
craftspeople who love flutes and flute music. We, myself and my assistant Geri, live on
Bat Cave Road in the Crooked Creek Community just outside of a little town called Old
Fort in the Smoky Mountains near Asheville, where we make flutes, garden, and live simply.
Although our business increases yearly, we are more interested in making beautiful sounding
instruments that are also well crafted works of art than we are in mass production; so we
spend a lot of time with each flute. We try to honor the life of the tree that was once a
living thing and that we now hold in our hands by making the very best flute that we can.
Because we are also performers, we play every flute we make before we sell it, tuning and
adjusting it, to ensure that they are all performance quality. Our flutes are played by
many professional musicians for both concerts and for pleasure. At the same time, they are
one of the simplest instruments to play. People who have sworn up and down to me that they
had no musical ability at all, have learned the basics of playing in about fifteen minutes.
That's because Native American flutes are fipple instruments - the whistle is built in- so
all you have to do is blow and cover the holes.
In addition, over time I have made subtle changes in my grandfathers' design which make the
flute easier to play and more musical. There are things that I know about flute making that
come from years of experience--things I could not teach to someone who didn't play the
flute, who couldn't hear subtle differences, who didn't have a connection with the flutes.
Even after a lifetime of flutemaking, I still sometimes make small changes that I feel
improve the sound of the flute. However, I still do many things the old way, the way that
my grandfather did. I still burn the holes into the flute which he said put fire into the
flute, and I still tie a piece of sweet grass onto each flute, to make it sound sweet.
In addition to making flutes, my grandfather taught me to be a woodcarver. And I have
incorporated this gift, along with in-laying with semi-precious stones, into my flute-
making through the creation of one-of-a-kind flutes. These fall into two categories. The
first type are what I call Museum Quality flutes; these I do to satisfy my own creativity.
These tend to be flutes with carvings that depict Native stories and mythical characters
and are quite detailed. The other type are Special Order flutes meant to personalize a flute
for its owner. I am often asked to do carvings or inlays of birds such as eagles, ravens,
or hummingbirds; plants such as dogwood blossoms; and animals such as bears and wolves for
either the end of the flute or the breath controller. For the inlays, I use stones such as
turquoise, mother-of-pearl, coral, malachite and metals. These personalized flutes can be
simple or elaborate. The carvings can be detailed or simple fetishes. Almost anything is
possible, so if you think you might be interested please feel free to give me a call or
send me an e-mail.
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