flute

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flute (It. flauto, Fr. flûte, Ger. Flöte). Wind instr. of ancient origin formerly made of wood but now of silver and other metals. From medieval times 2 methods of producing sound were used: (a) blowing across a round mouth-hole as on the panpipes or transverse (side-blown) fl.; (b) blowing into a whistle mouthpiece (end-blown) as on the recorder or flageolet. The word fl. was used indiscriminately to denote both types during medieval times, but in the baroque period fl. or flauto specifically meant the end-blown recorder. The modern fl. is descended from the Ger. (transverse) fl. Whereas today it is cylindrical in bore, stopped at one end, until the early 19th cent. it was conical. The player's breath sets in vibration the column of air inside the tube. Acoustically the tube acts as an open one; the mouth-hole serves to prevent its acting as stopped and thus sounding an octave lower. The body orig. had one thumb-hole and from 4 to 8 finger-holes. The 1st key was added in 1677, the 2nd in 1726 by Quantz, fl. teacher of Frederick the Great. The great fl. virtuoso of the Bavarian Court Orch., Theobald Boehm, used an 8-key fl., but revolutionized the instr. in 1832 with his ‘ring key’ system. In 1847 he produced a 15-hole metal instr. with 23 keys and levers. See alto flute, bass flute.

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