Native American Flutist · Published 19 June 2026
Cedar, walnut, cherry, redwood — what each one sounds like, what each is good for, and what actually matters.
One of the most common questions I get from people about to buy their first Native American flute is which wood to choose. The honest answer, before we get into the differences: the wood matters less than you think for your first flute, and more than you think for your tenth. Here's the long version.
Wood has a density. Higher density means the material reflects sound vibrations more sharply; lower density means it absorbs them more softly. For Native American flutes, the practical consequence is this: softwoods produce warmer, fuller, more diffuse tones. Hardwoods produce cleaner, brighter, more articulated tones. Neither is better. They're for different rooms and different music.
Within those two camps, individual woods have their own personalities. Most flutes you'll find on the market are made from one of four species, sometimes a fifth. Here they are.
Particularly Western Red Cedar, which is what most beginner flutes are made from. Cedar is soft, light, and acoustically absorbent. The voice is what most people describe as "warm" — rich, rounded, with a slight diffuseness to the upper notes that gives the instrument its characteristic atmospheric feel.
Cedar is also moisture-tolerant. Native American flutes accumulate condensation inside the bore as you play (your breath is warm and humid; the wood is cool and dry). Cedar absorbs that moisture without warping or splitting. For a beginner, this matters more than aesthetics — you'll play for an hour, set the flute down, and the wood will handle the moisture cycle without complaint.
Cedar is what I'd recommend for nearly every first flute. It's forgiving in tone, durable in real-world use, and it sounds like what most people are picturing when they imagine a Native American flute.
Walnut sits at a medium density. The voice is clearer than cedar — more articulate, with what makers often describe as a slightly raspy edge to the higher notes. It's not raspy in a bad way; it's raspy in the way a great singer's voice has texture. The notes have more individual definition. Walnut flutes also tend to be visually striking — the grain is rich, with dark and light bands.
Walnut is a good second flute for many players. After you've learned to control tone on cedar, walnut gives you more articulation to work with. It's also a great choice for recording, because the clarity carries well through a microphone.
Cherry is a medium-hard wood with what most players describe as a sweet, slightly warmer voice than walnut. It splits the difference: not as soft and absorbent as cedar, not as bright as walnut. Cherry also holds up well to humidity changes, which makes it a good travel flute. The grain is finer than walnut and the color tends to be a uniform reddish-brown that ages beautifully.
Cherry is what I'd suggest for a player who wants something elegant for performance — it carries cleanly without losing warmth, and the instrument tends to age into something that feels like a personal voice over years of playing.
Redwood is the least common of the four, but worth knowing about. It's a softwood like cedar, but denser and with a slightly different grain structure. The tone is full and resonant with a slightly more pronounced overtone series than cedar — richer in the way that an old church bell is richer than a small handbell. Redwood flutes can be stunning, particularly in lower keys.
The trade-off is supply. Old-growth redwood is protected; sustainable redwood for flute making mostly comes from reclaimed sources, which limits how many makers offer it. If you find a redwood flute from a reputable maker, it's worth considering.
Honest hierarchy of what affects whether you'll love your first flute:
If you're choosing your first flute and you're torn between cedar in your favorite key versus walnut in a less-comfortable key — go with cedar in the right key. If you're torn between an expensive walnut from a great maker and a cheap cedar from an unknown maker — go with the great maker. The wood is the third decision, not the first.
And then, once you've been playing for a year, you'll notice things in your own playing that point toward the next wood. Maybe your cedar feels too diffuse for the music you want to make and walnut sounds right. Maybe you want a richer voice and cherry calls to you. Maybe you fall in love with redwood. The second flute is when the wood choice really starts to matter, because by then you'll know what to listen for.
For now: cedar, A or G, from Woodsounds or another reputable maker. Then play it for a year. Then we'll talk.