Flute

A number of flutes dating to about 53,000 to 45,000 years ago have been found in the Swabian Jura region of present-day Germany, indicating a developed musical tradition from the earliest period of modern human presence in Europe.

[9] The Indian bamboo cross flute, Bansuri, was sacred to Krishna, who is depicted with the instrument in Hindu art.

[12] The word flute first appeared in the English language during the Middle English period, as floute,[13] flowte, or flo(y)te,[14] possibly from Old French flaute and Old Provençal flaüt,[13] or possibly from Old French fleüte, flaüte, flahute via Middle High German floite or Dutch fluit.

[15] Attempts to trace the word back to the Latin flare (to blow, inflate) have been called "phonologically impossible" or "inadmissable".

Flautist was used in 1860 by Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Marble Faun, after being adopted during the 18th century from Italy (flautista, itself from flauto), like many musical terms in England since the Italian Renaissance.

[15][22] A fragment of a juvenile cave bear's femur, with two to four holes, was found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,000 years ago.

[28] On announcing the discovery, scientists suggested that the "finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe".

[29] Scientists have also suggested that this flute's discovery may help to explain "the probable behavioural and cognitive gulf between" Neanderthals and early modern human.

[27] An 18.7 cm flute with three holes, made from a mammoth tusk and dated to 30,000–37,000 years ago, was found in 2004 in the Geißenklösterle cave near Ulm, in the southern German Swabian Alb.

[30] Two flutes made from swan bones were excavated a decade earlier from the same cave and dated to about 36,000 years ago.

A playable 9,000-year-old Chinese Gudi (literally, "bone flute") was excavated from a tomb in Jiahu along with 29 similar specimens.

[35] A set of cuneiform tablets knows as the "musical texts" provide precise tuning instructions for seven scales of a stringed instrument (assumed to be a Babylonian lyre).

As such, Jubal is regarded in the Judeo-Christian tradition as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage).

[36] In other sections of the Bible (1 Samuel 10:5, 1 Kings 1:40, Isaiah 5:12 and 30:29, and Jeremiah 48:36) the flute is referred to as "chalil", from the root word for "hollow".

[44] Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone,[45] but there is no clear consensus among manufacturers on a particular shape.

A study in which professional flutists were blindfolded could find no significant differences between flutes made from a variety of metals.

The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range".

After focused study and training, players use controlled air-direction to create an airstream in which the air is aimed downward into the tone hole of the flute's headjoint.

With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece, with 1/4 of their bottom lip covering the embouchure hole.

The standard concert flute is pitched in C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C or one half step lower when a B foot is attached.

[53] In 1998 Bharata Natya Shastra Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten 'thatas' currently present in Indian Classical Music.

One peculiar feature of the Chinese flute is the use of a resonance membrane mounted on one of the holes that vibrates with the air column inside the tube.

Commonly seen flutes in the modern Chinese orchestra are the bangdi (梆笛), qudi (曲笛), xindi (新笛), and dadi (大笛).

The bamboo flute played vertically is called the xiao (簫), which is a different category of wind instrument in China.

[clarification needed] The Japanese flute, called the fue, 笛 (hiragana: ふえ), encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan, include the end-blown shakuhachi and hotchiku, as well as the transverse gakubue, komabue, ryūteki, nōkan, shinobue, kagurabue and minteki.

The sodina is an end-blown flute found throughout the island state of Madagascar, located in the Indian Ocean off southeastern Africa.

One of the oldest instruments on the island, it bears close resemblance to end-blown flutes found in Southeast Asia and particularly Indonesia, where it is known as the suling, suggesting the predecessor to the sodina was carried to Madagascar in outrigger canoes by the island's original settlers emigrating from Borneo.

[57] The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality[58] found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia.

It is skillfully carved from wood/bamboo or metal and is played by blowing air into one end while covering and uncovering holes along the body to create different notes.