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History Of The Flute

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The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family, although it is now commonly made of metal, such as silver. Unlike other woodwind instruments, where the sound is produced by blowing through a double reed, (such as an oboe), a single reed and mouth piece, (such as a clarinet), or just a mouth piece, (such as a recorder); a flute produces its sound from the flow of air directed across a hole. The Flute has been dated back to, almost or even further back in history, the prehistoric times, and have since served for many a purpose, from communication between and within tribes, with cattle, and of course, as musical entertainment.

The flute has appeared in many different forms in many different locations around the world. The earliest flutes were made of carved bone, and later, from bamboo and wood. Some of the oldest examples of flute which still survive today, and among the oldest musical instruments used by man, include: a three-hole flute made from a mammoth tusk, found in the Geißenklösterle cave in the German Swabian Alb, dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago; and two flutes made from swan's bones, excavated a decade earlier from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago. A bone fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes found at Divje Babe in Slovenia, dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early form of flute.  Playable 8000-year-old Gudi instruments, (literally, "bone flute"), with from 5 to 8 holes each, and made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, were also excavated from a tomb in Jiahu, in the Central Chinese province of Henan.

In Europe, during the 16th and early 17th centuries, the transverse flute became available in several different sizes, in effect forming a consort, much in the same way that recorders and other instrument families were used in consorts. At this stage, the transverse flute was usually made in one section, (or two for the larger sizes), and had a cylindrical bore. As a result, the flute had a rather soft sound, but a limited range, and was used primarily in compositions for the "soft consort".

During the Baroque period, (17th to mid-18th centuries), the transverse flute was re-designed. Now often called the traverse, (from the Italian, traverso), it was made in three or four sections, or joints, with a conical bore from the head joint down. The conical bore design gave the instrument a wider range, and a more penetrating sound, without sacrificing the softer, expressive qualities of the instrument. In addition to chamber music, the traverso began to be used in orchestral music, eventually occupying an exalted status amongst the woodwinds. Many composers, such as Frenchmen Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, Michel Corrette, and Michel Blavet; Italians Antonio Vivaldi, and Pietro Locatelli; and Germans Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Phillipp Telemann, and Johann Joachim Quantz; wrote significant collections of sonatas and chamber works for the traverso. Quantz also wrote an important treatise on the flute and its performance practice.

The Western concert flute, or C flute, as we know it today, is a descendant of the 19th-Century "German Flute”. It is a transverse flute, which is closed at the top end, and open at the bottom. The instrument is constructed in three parts, or joints: the head, body, and foot. The lip plate and embouchure hole is positioned on the head joint. The majority of the tone-holes are found on the central body portion of the flute, and are larger circular holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, in order to produce the different notes in its playing range. The note produced depends on which tone-holes are opened or closed, and on how the flute is blown.

Curved head joints are also available for student flutes, enabling children as young as 3 years old, whose arms are not yet long enough to adapt to the standard horizontal playing position, to successfully hold and play the flute. The curved head joint, of a similar design to that of head joints used on bass flutes, allows the length of the flute to be reduced, thus it appears shorter, and is held more closely to the child’s body. There are also two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot, or the longer B foot, which has an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C.

With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C, and has a range of 3 octaves, beginning from middle C.  This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which is pitched an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched respectively a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are also used occasionally.

Music is written for alto flute more commonly than for bass. Alto and bass flutes are considerably larger and heavier than the standard C flute, and require a different embouchure and breath control, making them more difficult to play for extended periods of time. Similarly, the piccolo is much smaller than the standard flute, and again, requiring a much more focused embouchure and breath control.

Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include D flat piccolo, E flat soprano flute, (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and B flat bass flute. (Incidentally, the clarinet and brass families retain this orientation to a B flat, rather than C tonal centre). All these sizes of flute have become more and more popular, and frequently used, from the mid-20th century. An imaginative repertoire of music has been either composed or arranged, especially for “flute choir”, and continues to expand and be performed.

A flute produces sound when a stream of air is directed across the embouchure hole in the head joint of the instrument, bouncing in and out of the hole as a result of cutting against the far edge. Some engineers have called this a “fluidic multivibrator”, because it is functionally analogous to an electrical device, or electronic circuit, called a multivibrator. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon effect, leading to a “von Karman vortex street”, which excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The flautist is able to change the frequency of the air's vibrations by opening and closing holes in the body and foot of the instrument, effectively altering the length of the resonator, thus altering the volume of the resonant cavity, which determines the pitch of the notes being produced. Special effects whistles produce a glissando, (tonal slide), with a plunger at the end of the body, similar to a tire pump or fly sprayer. This slide effect can be produced on a modern day flute, simply by using just the head joint and a finger.

To become louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. The volume of a flute can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute - a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide; whilst the air stream of a concert flute measures just a fraction of an inch across.

In order to produce sound, the air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fipple flutes, (those with an actual mouth piece), a precisely formed and placed channel extrudes the air. In pipe organs, the air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player to explore a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple flutes. However, it also makes a transverse flute, (side-blown or end-blown flute), considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound, from that of a fipple flute, such as a recorder. Transverse flutes also need more air in order to play, which requires deeper breathing, and which makes circular breathing a considerably challenging proposition. (This is a technique, or rather a skill, of supplying a continuous flow of air, by blowing out through the mouth whilst blowing in through the nose, in order to be able to play long passages of quick notes without breathing - similar to the process of producing sound on bagpipes, where breathing out into the pipe through the mouth fills the bellow with air, which then can be compressed out whilst the player takes in more air, thus supplying a continuous flow of air to produce the sound).

In general, the quality called timbre, or "tone colour" varies, because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions, or intensities. A harmonic is a frequency, which is a whole number multiple of a lower register pitch, or " fundamental" note of the flute. For example: by over-blowing bottom C, a series of higher pitched intervals within the key of C major can be produced, similar to the construction of harmonies and chords. The air stream is thinner, (vibrating in more modes), faster, (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply, (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream), in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Almost all flutes can be played in fundamental, octave, tierce, quatre, and cinque modes, simply by blowing harder, and making the air stream move more quickly at a shallower angle.

Many believe that the timbre is also affected by the material from which the instrument is made. For example: instruments made of wood are often believed to be quieter and less bright than those made of metal. Different metals are also thought to influence the tone, such as silver or gold. However, a study in which professional players were blindfolded, could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified on a first hearing, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified by a significant fraction of the listeners. The study concluded that there was no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the tone colour, or dynamic range of the instrument.

Physicists who study flutes usually agree that relatively small differences in shape are more important than differences in material, because the waves in the air couple only weakly to vibrations in the body. Wooden flutes usually have different shapes from metal instruments. For example: the junction between the tone hole risers and the bore, are usually sharper in wooden instruments, and these sharper edges are expected to have a substantial effect on sound. This does not mean that a gold flute is no better than, say, a brass one, as the gold flute is likely to have been hand-finished by a more proficient craftsman, and by that merit, possess superior acoustic qualities. In addition, the copper properties of gold flutes are said to make a substantial contribution to the richness and fullness of tone.

The modern professional concert flute is generally made of silver, gold, (both yellow and rose), or combinations of the two. Some of the most expensive flutes are also fabricated from platinum. Student instruments are commonly made of nickel-silver alloy, composed of nickel, copper, and zinc, (also known as "German silver"); or nickel- or silver-plated brass.

Wooden flutes and head joints have a warmer, softer tone, which is more desirable to some people than the brighter sound of metal-bodied flutes. Wooden flutes were far more common before the early 20th century, and whose somewhat less highly polished bores tended to darken the timbre, allowing for a more mellow tone. The silver flute was introduced by Theobald Boehm in 1847, but did not become common until later in the twentieth century. Wm. S. Haynes, a flute manufacturer in Boston, told Georges Barrere, an eminent flautist, that in 1905, he made one silver flute to every 100 wooden ones, but in the 1930s, he made one wooden flute to every 100 silver ones.

Today, the silver flute is still far more popular than the wooden flute, and is accepted as the standard in most symphony orchestras. However, for solo performers, it is becoming fashionable to have a selection of flutes, both metal and wooden, in order to more effectively adapt to the tonal and stylistic qualities of music from different periods. For example: it is preferred that Baroque music be performed on a wooden flute, given its softer darker tone; and works from the Romantic and 20th century be performed on silver or gold, given the often dramatic tonal demands and characteristics of the music.

Various mechanical options are now available on the modern flute. The B flat thumb key, invented and pioneered by Briccialdi, is practically a standard feature. The B foot joint, however, is an option only available on middle-to-upper end models. Other additions include, the split-E mechanism, and more recently, a C sharp trill key, and an increasingly popular roller between the E flat and C sharp keys.

Open-hole "French model" flutes, whose central openings are covered by the fingertips when depressed, are frequently chosen by concert-level performers, although in Germany, Italy, and Eastern Europe, professionals commonly select instruments with closed-hole "plateau" keys. Students usually begin playing flutes with closed-hole keys, or by using temporary plugs to cover the holes in the keys, until they master the more precise finger placement needed to play open-hole keys. Some flute players state that open-hole keys permit louder and clearer sound projection in the flute's lower register. Open-hole keys are also needed for playing traditional Celtic music, and other ethnic styles, as well as certain modern "extended technique" “avant garde” pieces, requiring the player to produce harmonic overtones, or to manipulate "breathy" sounds in addition to the traditional "pure" tones. Also, on an open-hole flute, "quarter tones", which fall halfway between the regular semitone steps of the chromatic scale, are achievable, and can be produced by means of a more complex fingering system.