Earth My Body - Sheet Music for Native American Flute
I was introduced to this chant by Wayne McCleskey at the Vashon Island flute gathering the Summer of 2002. The earliest mention of Earth My Body that I've found is from Julie Forest Middleton's 1998 book Songs for Earthlings, which cites it as a contemporary chant of unknown authorship ([Middleton 1998]). According to Ian Prattis in his 2011 collection, the words are “from an Earth chant sung by children, in countless languages, around the world” ([Prattis 2011]).
Lyrics
The English lyrics to the chant are:
Earth my body, Water my blood, Air my breath and Fire my spirit
And here are some translations into various languages. Many are using Google Translate … if you are a native speaker of the language and have a better version, of if you would like to contribute a new language, please Contact Me.
Tierra mi cuerpo, agua mi sangre, la respiración de aire y fuego mi espíritu
The Melody and Performance Notes
There are many melodies that have been used for Earth My Body. The melody transcribed below is from Wayne McCleskey at the Vashon Island flute gathering the Summer of 2002.
Note that it uses an unusual note on the Native American flute: the “Fire” note can be fingered as , , or even depending on the particular flute you're playing.
Recordings
Here is a straight recording of the melody I made on December 2, 2011 on a low C# Native American flute by Brent Haines of Woodsounds Flutes. I'm playing both the low and the high versions of the melody twice, just as an example, the second time through uses a bit more ornamentation than the first time:
Earth My Body
Clint Goss.
C# minor flute by Brent Haines.
Sheet Music - Six-hole Pentatonic Minor Tuned Flutes
Earth My Body - Six-Hole Flutes - Pentatonic Minor Tuning
Sheet Music - Five-hole Pentatonic Minor Tuned Flutes
Earth My Body - Five-Hole Flutes - Pentatonic Minor Tuning
To cite this page on Wikipedia: <ref name="Goss_2022_song_earth_my_body"> {{cite web |last=Goss |first=Clint |title=Earth My Body - Sheet Music for Native American Flute |url=http://www.Flutopedia.com/song_earth_my_body.htm |date=7 June 2022 |website=Flutopedia |access-date=<YOUR RETRIEVAL DATE> }}</ref>