woodenflutes@yahoo.ca

Welcome to the home-page of Brent Santin.

• I am a Canadian musician and instrument maker with a bit of a split musical personality. On one hand, I specialize in the traditional music of Ireland, Scotland and Canada. I play the "Irish" wooden flute, various whistles, the bodhran and the bones as well as occasionally dabbling in the button accordion and mandolin / tenor banjo. On the other hand, I compose and record music using retro electronic instruments and found noise making gadgets. Press play to hear some of my traditional music or follow the orange SoundCloud link for some of my non-traditional music. Look in the album section below for links to more tunes and video.
  

http://soundcloud.com/brentsantin

• Irish Flutes: I make conical bore, simple-system wooden flutes for traditional Irish/Celtic music. Follow the link for more information about these.

• "How to Make a Bodhran": This is an article I wrote on my experiences with bodhran making (the Irish goat-skin drum). Here you can find Revision 4.1 of the article. This article is also hosted on the Ceolas bodhran site, but unfortunately that site is not being updated regularly. The version there is only 3.0 and has some errors that have since been corrected.  This article has also been translated into German and supposedly be can be found here, but they've re-organised their site and it's buried somewhere.

• I'm a graphic artist! I've designed album covers, product packaging and stuff for art's sake too, of course. You can even can buy my Celtic music related (and non-Celtic music related) art on shirts, hats, mugs and other paraphenalia on-line at Cafe Press! The two T-Shirts above feature artwork from gig posters of one of the very first bands I was in, the Spleen Bishops.

• I've written a few children's books starring the curious duo Robot & Lion! These colourful and humorous picture books were originally made for my nephew and daughter - but heck, they turned out pretty well (forgive me if I do say so myself). If you have a child aged 4 to 10 years old these might be a nice gift for him or her - and I'd be thrilled to know other kids were enjoying these. You can see previews of the books or order them online at Lulu.com (click here, or on the picture above).
  

• "GreanStalk": After the Spleen Bishops disbanded, Jim Maxwell and I played for a number of years (1995 to 1998) as a traditional Celtic music duo call 'GreanStalk'. The music was quite good. We recorded two albums that are now downloadable for free at soundclick.com. Now you can view performances by GreanStalk and some of the other bands I've been in on my YouTube Channel!

• "Haggis": In 1999 I moved to Cornwall, Ontario. I soon hooked up with a local Celtic Rock band called Haggis. For a few years we played venues in Eastern Ontario, travelled to Alberta and into the United States. You can listen to some of Haggis' music at soundclick.com.

• The Ovoids: I love Celtic music, it's a beautiful musical form that is steeped in tradition. This means that to a certain extent it follows 'rules'. Occasionally I like to throw the rules to the wind and just experiment with interesting, non-Celtic forms of music. You can hear some of my original non-traditaion music at SoundCloud and also at SoundClick.com, recorded under the creative umbrella known as 'The Ovoids'.

• My Consolecade: I'm intrigued by late 1970's and early 1980's video game systems and computers. This page tells how I made a replica arcade cabinet, which plays ColecoVision and Atari 2600 games.

• "CafeVIC": This site provides information regarding a project I'm involved in to preserve information about the early 1980's computer 'The Commodore VIC-20'. The progress is slow, but ongoing. Update 2006: This project is currently frozen, but will hopefully be revived one day or its work incorporated into some other group's effort.

I've performed on the following albums:

(some of the links below take you to Soundclick.com where you can listen to or download the music.)

	Album: Sounds Like the 19th Century Band: Brent Santin & Gary Mallon Year: 2005 Catalogue: FDEC-002 Click here to find out how you can buy this album!			Album: A Good Excuse To Wear A Suit Band: Hadrian's Wall Year: 2003 Catalogue: HDW006
	Album: 1866: The Music of Canada West Band: Various Guest Musicians Year: 2002 Catalogue: FDEC-001 Click here to find out how you can buy this album!			Album: Building On Tradition Band: Haggis & Various Year: 2001 Catalogue: RDRCD-6962
	Album: The Long Forgotten Hits of Haggis Band: Haggis Year: 2001 Catalogue: HCD02 Listen to selected Haggis songs for FREE!			Album: AutoScot Band: Haggis Year: 2000 Catalogue: HCD01 Listen to selected Haggis songs for FREE!
	Album: This Ain't Your Mother's Cooking Band: Haggis Year: 1999 Catalogue: Independent Listen to selected Haggis songs for FREE!			Album: The Money Pit Band: GreanStalk Year: 1998 Catalogue: Mungo Reocords - GS02 Listen to this album for FREE! Watch a performance on YouTube!
	Album: Samrad Linn Band: Sheila Ryan Year: 1997 Catalogue: CDSR02			Album: Dratsville Band: GreanStalk Year: 1996 Catalogue: Mungo Records - GS01 Listen to this album for FREE! Watch a performance on YouTube!
	Album: The Spleen Bishops Band: The Spleen Bishops Year: 1993 Catalogue: Independent Watch a performance on YouTube!			Album: Duncan Cameron (various demos) Band: The Duncan Cameron Band Year: 1998 Watch a performance on YouTube!

woodenflutes@yahoo.ca

Last updated March 27th, 2013