The flageolet is a woodwind instrument and a member of the family of duct flutes that includes recorders and tin whistles.

This instrument was played by Hector Berlioz, Frédéric Chalon, Samuel Pepys, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, certain English instrument makers, most notably William Bainbridge, started to make flageolets with six finger-holes on the front.

[10] Bainbridge also produced a triple flageolet which added a third, drone pipe which was fingered in a similar way to an ocarina.

The chamber inside the windcap was intended to collect moisture and prevent it from entering the duct, employing differing devices for that purpose.

The stream of air passing through the duct crosses the window and is split by the labium (also lip or edge) giving rise to a musical sound.

The windcap is not essential to the sound production and the instrument can be played by blowing directly into the duct as in the initial recorder-type design.