SNAFT - Simplified Native American Flute Tablature

One of the challenges of playing the Native American Flute is to communicate fingerings.

SNAFT is an easy notation for writing fingerings in character form - in EMail messages of simple text files. It was originally developed by Randy Goodhew. The version that I present here has some minor modifications to his original design.

Basic SNAFT

The basic characters of snaft are:

    < = Mouth end of the flute ... always at the left.

    x = Hole closed.

    o = Hole open.

    h = Hole "half" or partially open.

    | = The break between the left and right hand.

SNAFT is written left to right, with the mouth hole always at the left. Some examples:

    <xxx|xxx = All holes closed.

    <xxx|xxo = One hole nearest the foot of the flute is open.

    <xxx|xxh = One hole nearest the foot of the flute is partially open.

Examples

Here is an example of the basic mode 1 pentatonic scale, as played on many Native American Flutes:

    <xxx|xxx
    <xxx|xxo
    <xxx|xoo
    <xxx|ooo
    <xox|ooo
    <oox|ooo

And here is the basic mode 4 pentatonic scale, as played on many Native American Flutes:

    <xxx|xxx
    <xxx|xxo
    <xxx|xoo
    <xxo|xoo
    <xoo|xoo
    <ooo|xoo

Advanced SNAFT

Here are some "advanced" notation conventions:

    t = Trill. Rapidly open and close this finger.

    ! = High register. This is added at the end of the finger notation to indicate overblowing into the upper register.

... and some examples with these characters:

    <xxx|xto = Trill between two notes on the second hole from the foot.

    <oxx|xxx! = Only top hole open, and overblown into second register.

Web site by Clint Goss - Last updated June 28, 2008.