Here is a well-written article appearing in The Park Herald newspaper of Park City Utah about some concerts I am presenting in Utah this next week. To find all the venues go to my Calendar page.
I'm really looking forward to bringing my music to Utah. I performed at the Sundance Film Festival a few years back so it will be nice to return to Salt Lake City and Park City. I look forward to meeting some of you. If you know anyone in the SLC area please let them know about my shows and post it on your wall please. Thank you.
Tickets and info can be found at https://ticketbud.com/events/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search=randy+granger&button=
http://www.parkrecord.com/park_city-news/ci_26500440/shop-yoga-studio-will-present-night-healing-and
Shop Yoga Studio will present a night of healing and spiritual flute music
Randy Granger to hold workshop, concert
Scott Iwasaki, The Park Record
POSTED: 09/09/2014 05:10:45 PM MDT
Native American flutist, Southwest world-instrumentalist and songwriter Randy Granger will appear at the Shop Yoga Studio, 1167 Woodside Ave., on Sunday, Sept. 14, as part of a Utah tour..
In addition to performing an array of music on his flute, and hang drum (a convex steel percussion instrument), and singing songs, Granger will also host a seminar.
"Essentially, these will be what I normally do when I'm on the road," Granger said during a phone call to The Park Record from his home in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
"There will be a two-hour concert and a Native American flute-playing workshop, which I always try to fit in somewhere."
The workshop will be about the history of the flute and how to play.
"I will address specific techniques that are exclusive to the Native American flute, and I will also address how to play the flute with world percussion, guitar and voice."
Granger, a trained musician who has taught percussion and guitar, discovered the Native American flute in 2004.
"I worked with the All Indian Pueblo Council and had been touring the pueblos of Northern New Mexico to help the communities set up health programs," Granger said. "I would hear all this great flute music coming out of there and it immediately struck me as how peaceful it made me feel."
Granger decided to explore the flute because of that peacefulness, but also because of the innate spirituality to it.
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Prior to getting the flute, Granger had never played a woodwind or reed instrument, but after playing for 10 years, he has released seven Native flute albums and has performed with Grammy winner R. Carlos Nakai and also with Coyote Oldman, which is comprised of Barry Stramp and Michael Graham Allen.
But all that came in time.
"I learned first off, that it was easy to get a nice sound, but I also found if you wanted to expand and create more melodies, you had to learn the craft," Granger said. "That's where being a trained musician helped me out. I know what it takes to be a musician. I know how much discipline it took."
However, being a musician was also a curse.
"I didn't feel I was good enough to play in front of an audience," he said. "I would work at it and work at it, but still was so terrible at it that I would hide in my bathroom playing because I didn't want my roommates to hear. When I would come out they would say, 'You are getting better.'"
Sometimes Granger would get brave and venture to the local farmers' market and play.
"But I was so shy that I would kind of hide in doorways," he said.
The hard work eventually paid off.
"I started to get better, and at the same time that was happening, I was asked by a woman who worked at a hospice to perform at a memorial service," Granger said. "So, for the past nine years I have been a volunteer at hospice playing flute and the other instruments I play. This has been a very enriching and rewarding experience and this has been a real magical journey."
Along the road, Granger has done his best to clear up some confusion about the Native American flute.
The number one question he is asked is if he makes his own flutes.
"There is a misconception that somehow all of us flute players have to make our own flutes and that we sit around whittling every day," Granger said, laughing. "That may be because people will look at the flute and think it's a pretty simple instrument to make — just cut a tree branch and drill some holes in it."
But that's not true.
"In the beginning, Native flutes were made to fit the player," Granger explained. "They were very personal and fit the hands and mouth. Now they are made by professional, master flute makers who work with wood."
Another myth he had heard was that every tribe had its own traditions with the flute.
"That is simply not the case either, because not every tribe played flutes," Granger said. "Some were Comanche. Some were Sioux and some were Pueblo. In the past 30 to 35 years, there has been a resurgence of Native flute popularity, spurred on by R. Carlos Nakai and other traditional players."
Granger is a mix of Apache and Athabaskan, and has a string of Mayan, specifically Choltan, blood running through his veins.
However, he didn't learn this until he was an adult.
"When I was growing up in Southern New Mexico, my parents were a first-generation couple from Mexico, and I grew up in the Hispanic culture," Granger said. "They weren't raised to be proud of their Native heritage and didn't tell us kids any stories about our ancestry."
Even when Granger and some of the younger family members did ask about their heritage, the adults told stories that didn't coincide with each other's tales. So, Granger took it upon himself to find out what his Native ancestry was.
"Since I play at many Native American festivals, and the only way to do that was to prove I was Native American," he said. "So what I had to do was undergo a series of DNA tests.
"What was fascinating about these DNA tests was that I was able to trace my line back even to Mongolia and the Middle East," he said. "It was so fascinating to me, and I feel like I have a real spiritual link to my identity and that has allowed me to embrace my ancestry."
The Shop Yoga Studio, 1167 Woodside Ave., will welcome Native American flutist Randy Granger on Sunday, Sept. 14, from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m. Tickets are $16.73 each and can be purchased by visiting laudantium-72181.ticketbud.com/randy-granger-at-the-shop-yoga-studio.