Flute

The flute is a wind instrument in which sound is produced by a stream of air directed against a sharp edge, upon which the air breaks up into eddies that set the air enclosed in the flute vibrating. Flutes are a diverse family, and their earliest examples are tens of thousands of years old.

The flute is an open pipe, open at the far end and at any open tone holes, and the player leaves a large part of the embouchure hole open to the atmosphere. Because the pressure is zero at the two open ends, the pressure nodes effectively lie past the end of the tube by about 0.6 times the radius, a distance called the end correction. Between the point where the embouchure riser meets the main bore and the cork in the closed end lies a small volume of air, and the cork is normally positioned about 17 mm from the centre of the embouchure hole.

The speed of the displacement wave on the jet is about half the air-speed of the jet itself, which is typically in the range 20 to 60 metres per second. To play a high note the travel time of waves on the jet must be reduced, which the player does by increasing blowing pressure and moving the lips forward to shorten the distance along the jet to the edge of the embouchure hole.

Opening tone holes starting from the far end makes the pressure node move closer up the pipe, rather like making the pipe shorter, and on the Boehm flute each opened tone hole raises the pitch by a semitone. A register hole placed halfway along the working length makes the played note one octave higher, because it permits the second harmonic of the fundamental, and a register hole at half the length is used for the standard fingerings for D5 and others.

On the modern or Boehm flute successive semitones are played by opening a tone hole dedicated to that purpose, and twelve semitones in an octave exceed the number of fingers on standard players, particularly when the right thumb supports the instrument. Low frequency waves are reflected at the first open tone hole, higher frequency waves travel further and sufficiently high frequency waves travel down the tube past the open holes, so an array of open tone holes acts as a high pass filter. The ocarina, by contrast, uses a Helmholtz resonator to drive the jet instead of a resonant duct.

The fife is a side-blown or transverse edge aerophone of Europe and North America, long associated with the military, specifically the infantry, where it served as both a melodic instrument in marching music and a signal instrument on the battlefield.It is a small transverse side-blown flute with six finger holes and a narrow cylindrical bore that produces a high pitch and shrill tone. The modern fife is pitched to the A-flat above middle C, is about 15.5 inches or 39 cm long, and often has an added E-flat hole covered by a key, with a compass of about two octaves.

The Fujara, an extremely long flute with three finger holes traditionally played by Slovak shepherds, is regarded as an integral part of the traditional culture of Central Slovakia. Its main tube measures 160 to 200 cm in length and is connected to a shorter tube of 50 to 80 cm. The instrument is characterized by deep mumbling tones and very high overtones. In the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Fujara became known and appreciated beyond the shepherds' use, and through festivals it gained recognition and popularity throughout Slovakia.

The dizi, or Chinese transverse flute, is a major Chinese musical instrument widely used in many genres of Chinese folk music, Chinese opera, and the modern Chinese orchestra. It is sometimes known as the di or hengdi, and it has varieties including Qudi, Bangdi and Xindi, most of them made of bamboo.

The layer that contained the flute was deposited about 60 to 50 millennia ago, and its age was recently established with electron spin resonance used on bear teeth. The find was made in 1995 during archaeological excavations led by Ivan Turk and Janez Dirjec of the Institute of Archaeology at ZRC SAZU, in a Mousterian layer of the Divje Babe I cave site. The instrument measures 11.4 cm, is the only one that was definitely made by Neanderthals, and is about 20,000 years older than other known flutes made by anatomically modern humans. The discovery confirmed that Neanderthals were already creating music more than 60,000 years ago, demonstrating advanced creativity, symbolic expression and a rich cultural world. The original Neanderthal flute is preserved in the National Museum of Slovenia and remains one of the key symbols of prehistoric world heritage.

Hohle Fels is a cave formed in the White Jurassic period in the Ach valley near Schelklingen, important for its Middle and Upper Palaeolithic layers. The oldest known evidence for art and music stems from the archaeological layer Vb of Hohle Fels. Only 70 cm from where the Venus was found, twelve fragments of a flute crafted from the radius of a griffon were uncovered.

Outside the caves of the Swabian Jura, the earliest secure archaeological evidence for music comes from sites in France and Austria and post-dates 30,000 years ago. In central China, the archaeological site of Jiahu in the Yellow River basin of Henan Province is remarkable for the cultural and artistic remains uncovered there, and its flutes date to 7000 to 5700 BCE. The Hohle Fels study appeared as a Letter in Nature volume 460 in 2009 by Nicholas J. Conard, Maria Malina and Susanne C.

Theobald Boehm, a Munich flute player and inventor, was the son of a goldsmith who trained both as a goldsmith and as a flautist, studied the flute and became a Munich court musician in 1818, and in 1828 opened a factory.He created his new conical model in 1832; he replaced the traditional hole layout with an acoustically based one and devised a system of ring keys on longitudinal axles, and this flute was superseded in 1847 by his second design with its experimentally evolved cylindrical bore.

Boehm used his new knowledge of acoustics to calculate the ideal positions of the holes of his 1847 flute, recommended building it from metal rather than wood, and sold the English and French production rights to Rudall, Rose and Carte and to Clair Godfroy aine. The Carte 1867 flute may be considered one of the most complicated flutes to have been commercially produced on a large scale, combining two already complicated fingering systems.

The transverse flute was known in ancient Greece and Etruria by the 2nd century BCE, and was next recorded in India, then China and Japan, where it remains a leading wind instrument. Antedating the orchestral transverse flute, the fife is first attested in Europe during the 12th century, and from the time of the Crusades it has been played with cylindrical side drums as an infantry instrument, notably in Switzerland and Germany. In the 16th century the tenor flute pitched in G was played in consort with descant and bass flutes.

These 16th-century flutes were made obsolete late in the 17th century by the one-keyed conical flute, probably conceived by the celebrated Hotteterre family of makers and players in Paris, and made in separate joints with a cylindrical head joint. From 1760 three chromatic keys in addition to the original E-flat key began to be used in order to improve various semitones. By 1800 the typical orchestral flute had these keys plus a lengthened foot joint to C, making six keys altogether.

The Dayton C. Miller collection at the Library of Congress contains nearly 1,700 flutes and other wind instruments, statuary, iconography, books, music, trade catalogs, tutors and patents, mostly related to the flute.^{14About this Collection — Dayton C. Miller Collection · Library of Congress ↗} Its highlights include 40 flutes from the Munich workshops of Theobald Boehm, Rudolph Greve and Carl Mendler, and a flute that once belonged to King Frederick II of Prussia, designed by his teacher Joachim Quantz.^{15Dayton C. Miller Collection of Wind Instruments · Library of Congress ↗} The collection of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg contains all types of instruments from the 16th to 20th century and stretches to more than 3000 objects ^{16Musical Instruments · Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg ↗}.

The archaeological record for the flute is anchored in the caves of the Swabian Jura, where bone and ivory instruments from the early Aurignacian period of southwestern Germany demonstrate a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe more than 35,000 calendar years ago.

• about 60 to 50 millennia ago
  Divje Babe layer deposited
  The layer containing the disputed bone artefact was laid down.
• at least 35,000 years old
  Hohle Fels flute
  The Hohle Fels flute is thought to be at least this old.
• more than 35,000 calendar years ago
  Early Aurignacian flutes reported
  The Nature report describes bone and ivory flutes from southwestern Germany, evidencing a musical tradition at the time modern humans colonized Europe.
• by the 2nd century BCE
  Transverse flute in Greece and Etruria
  The instrument was known in both regions.
• 12th century
  Fife first attested in Europe
  The earliest European attestation of the fife.
• 16th century
  Tenor flute in G
  Played in consort with descant and bass flutes.
• late 17th century
  One-keyed conical flute
  Superseded the flutes of the 16th century.
• from 1760
  Chromatic keys in use
  Chromatic keys came into use.
• by 1800
  Six-key orchestral flute
  The six-key orchestral flute was established.
• 1794
  Boehm born in Munich
  Theobald Boehm was born in Munich.
• 1818
  Munich court post
  Boehm took up his post at the Munich court.
• 1828
  Factory opened
  Boehm opened his factory.
• 1831
  Journey to Paris and London
  Boehm travelled to Paris and London.
• 1832
  Conical model
  Boehm produced his conical model.
• 1843
  Adoption in England
  Richard Carte adopted the 1832 flute in England.
• 1847
  Cylindrical design
  Boehm introduced his cylindrical design.
• 1881
  Boehm dies in Munich
  Theobald Boehm died in Munich.
• 1995
  Divje Babe excavation
  Excavation of the Divje Babe site.
• 2005
  Fujara proclaimed by UNESCO
  The fujara was proclaimed by UNESCO.
• 2008
  Hohle Fels discoveries
  The Hohle Fels discoveries were made.
• 2008
  Fujara inscribed by UNESCO
  The fujara was inscribed by UNESCO.