This is a one-of-a-kind donation created for KUNM's Online Auction by Ingrid and Avi Burg, flutemakers extraordinaire!

This exquisite piece is in F# Northern Plains American Indian Tuning and is their first flute made as a walking stick! The handle is the natural root of the bamboo plant, made to fit the hand of the journeyer. The flute is played with the mouthpiece on the side for comfort and is tuned in a five whole pentatonic scale based on the Lakota love flute. Waxed nylon thread has been used to discourage cracking and the rubber ball at the bottom gives support in the city or out in the wild. This design allows the flute to be a multi-purpose tool. There is a silver filigreed face from Bali circa 1950 that was added for beauty, and the "extra holes" at the bottom for tuning are based on models from Tibet. It can play traditional and improvisational music, assist in your breath control, court your beloved, talk to animals, relax you and help you up the mountain. It's an amazing tool for wherever the journey leads you.

Ingrid Burg moved to New Mexico in 1976 and has spent most of the last 33 years making bamboo flutes in Albuquerque. Some of her flutes are traditional; however most of her present creations are influenced from studying flutes from around the world and combining concepts to make an easier instrument to play. Her intention is for the flutes to be user-friendly as well as reawaken that part of every person that longs to be attuned with their own creativity. For the last 10 years, Ingrid has worked with her son, Avi.

Avi Burg is a Sound Healer/musician living in Taos. He was raised with the sounds of the flutes and KUNM in the house. He's a licensed massage therapist and brings the flutes into his treatments, as well as tuning forks, drums, didgeridoos and his own voice. Avi and Ingrid have been showing their flutes at Sound Healing Conferences in Santa Fe and California, encouraging all to become hollow like a flute and connect to the one breath that breathes us all.

Flutes came before fingers. "Flutes came before people. The wind made them and played them. One culm leaning on another rubbed holes the weather whispered through; birds pursuing bugs or building nests drilled over notes in the internodes. Long afterwards, the human race came wandering down the path of spontaneous mutation and built their villages beside the groves. Bamboo moaning in the windy midnight made melodies that seemed played by spirit fingers, strange lips, and a ghost orchestra of ancestors come to mumble down the long tube of dreams..." from The Book of Bamboo by David Farrelly

The Bamboo Flute Walking Stick will go to the highest bidder.  May the bidding begin!