As a one year old boy, Michael Telapary knew how to fascinate people around him, by whistle melodies before he could even talk. At a young age he began playing the guitar, encouraged by his father, who gave him the first lessons. At the age of 20 years, he decided together with his brother Eddy, to perform throughout the country as a guitar duo. The mix of virtuoso guitar playing of Eddy and the tight rhythmic basis of Michael, they created a very own style, influenced by greats guitar players, such as John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola and Paco De Lucia. After about one year Michael stopped abruptly with the guitar in order to better focus on other goals in his life. About 13 years later Michael came back in touch with his feelings for musical sounds, this time not with a guitar but with a Native American flute. During his stay in Arizona with his partner Karin, they were gifted a special flute from Joe Black Horse an Apache medicine man. It was a double barrel flute made of cedar. When Michael asked the Medicineman to teach him to play the flute as he could, he said the following.
The Native American flute has six holes; the third hole from the top is always being closed with your ring finger, which is connected to your heart. Look around you and let your senses work, balance yourself with nature and the environment around you, mix the emotions that are generated with your breath and blow the flute, the emotions will be translated to the melodic sounds of the flute.
This way of playing goes back thousands of years ago when the Native American flute came in existence. As a one-year old boy, Michael already knew intuitively what his passion would be in the future "flute music " The Native American flute is based on a pentatonic scale, in other words, the tone set comprises five tones that are related to the five holes of the flute that are played open or closed, the presence of the sixth hole from the gives the spiritual nature of the playing this flute playing, but also the possibility to play different scales, provided that the flute is perfectly tuned.
For years Michael played different flutes, the search for the most perfect flute led him through the different states of America, the problem with most flutes was the fine-tuning, in most cases is not perfect, which makes the interplay with other mainstream music instruments impossible because of the disharmony in the sounds. Finally his long quest was rewarded with the discovery of the High Spirits flutes, made by one of the best flute makers in the world Odell Borg. On his first visit to Odell's flute shop in Arizona, Michael purchased a complete collection of his best flutes. A nice collection of these flutes are for sale through at his company, note the special offer for the purchase of a flute during a flute workshop!
After several concerts in the U.S. in 2009 Michael decided to bring out a CD under his own label. On the CD he uses a wide variety of High Spirits flutes mixed with percussion, synthesizer and sounds of nature and life recorded during his stays in Arizona.
Besides many life concerts, Michael has also started with Native American flute workshops for beginners and advanced students. The flutes used during the workshops are of course High Spirits flutes. These flutes are also sold for a special price in a workshop package. Check the workshop page for more information.
