Flute
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The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the
who plays the flute is called a flautist or flutist.The bamboo flute has a long history, especially in China and India. Flutes have been discovered in historical records and artworks starting in the Zhou dynasty. The oldest written sources reveal the Chinese were using the kuan (a reed instrument) and hsio (or xiao, an end-blown flute, often of bamboo) in the 12th–11th centuries BC, followed by the chi (or ch'ih) in the 9th century BC and the yüeh in the 8th century BC.[7] Of these, the bamboo chi is the oldest documented transverse flute.[7][8]
The cross flute (Sanskrit: vāṃśī) was "the outstanding wind instrument of ancient India", according to Curt Sachs.
According to historian Alexander Buchner, there were flutes in Europe in prehistoric times, but they disappeared from the continent until their arrival from Asia, by way of "North Africa, Hungary, and Bohemia".[11] The end-blown flute began to be seen in illustration in the 11th century.[11] Transverse flutes entered Europe through Byzantium and were depicted in Greek art about 800 AD.[12] The transverse flute had spread into Europe by way of Germany, and was known as the German flute.[12]
Etymology and terminology
The word flute first appeared in the English language during the
A musician who plays any instrument in the flute family can be called a flutist,[17] flautist,[18] or flute player. Flutist dates back to at least 1603, the earliest quotation cited by the Oxford English Dictionary. 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. Other English terms, now virtually obsolete, are fluter (15th–19th centuries)[19][20][21] and flutenist (17th and 18th centuries).[15][22]
History
A fragment of a juvenile
The Hohle Fels flute is one of several found in the
An 18.7 cm flute with three holes, made from a
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.[31] They were made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes and each has five to eight holes.[32] The earliest extant Chinese transverse flute is a chi (
The earliest written reference to a flute is from a Sumerian-language cuneiform tablet dated to c. 2600–2700 BC.[34] Flutes are mentioned in a recently translated tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem whose development spanned the period from about 2100–600 BC.[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). One of those scales is named embūbum, which is an Akkadian word for "flute".[35]
Some early flutes were made out of
Acoustics
A flute produces
Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone,[45] but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter.[46] Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radii or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute.
A study in which professional flutists were blindfolded could find no significant differences between flutes made from a variety of metals.[47] In two different sets of blind listening, no flute was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver flute was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range".
Materials
Flutes have been made of metal, wood, glass, plastic, bone, bamboo, reed, and nephrite.
Types
In its most basic form, a flute is an open tube which is blown into. 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. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece, with 1/4 of their bottom lip covering the embouchure hole. However, some flutes, such as the
Another division is between side-blown (or
Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The
Flutes may have any number of pipes or tubes, though one is the most common number. Flutes with multiple resonators may be played one resonator at a time (as is typical with pan pipes) or more than one at a time (as is typical with double flutes).
Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The flue pipes of organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans.
Western transverse
Wooden one-keyed
Usually in D, wooden transverse flutes were played in European classical music mainly in the period from the early 18th century to the early 19th century. As such, the instrument is often indicated as
Concert
The
The standard concert flute is pitched in C and has a range of three
Concert variants
The
Other sizes of flutes and piccolos are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the G treble flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include D♭ piccolo, E♭ soprano flute (Keyed a minor 3rd above the standard C flute), F alto flute, and B♭ bass flute.
Indian
The
Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the
The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagercoil area of South India.[51]
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.[52]
In a regional dialect of Gujarati, a flute is also called Pavo.[53] Some people can also play pair of flutes (Jodiyo Pavo) simultaneously.
Chinese
In China there are many varieties of dizi (笛子), or Chinese flute, with different sizes, structures (with or without a resonance membrane) and number of holes (from 6 to 11) and intonations (different keys). Most are made of bamboo, but can come in wood, jade, bone, and iron. 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. This membrane is called a di mo, which is usually a thin tissue paper. It gives the flute a bright sound.
Commonly seen flutes in the modern Chinese orchestra are the
Korean
The Korean flute, called the daegeum, 대금, is a large bamboo transverse flute used in traditional Korean music. It has a buzzing membrane that gives it a unique timbre.[clarification needed]
Japanese
The Japanese flute, called the
.Sodina and suling
The
Sring
The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality[56] found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole,[56] producing a diatonic scale. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments.[57]
Ọjà
The Ọjà // ⓘ is a traditional musical instrument utilized by the Igbo people, who are indigenous to Nigeria. The ọjà (flute) is used during cultural activities or events where Igbo music is played. 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. [58]
Breathing techniques
There are several means by which flautists breathe to blow air through the instrument and produce sound. They include diaphragmatic breathing and circular breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing optimizes inhalation, minimizing the number of breaths. Circular breathing brings air in through the nose and out through the mouth, enabling a continuous sound.
See also
- Diple
- Flute method
- Frula
- Hand flute
- Irish flute
- Jazz flute
- List of flutists
- Native American flute
- Palendag
- Pipe and tabor
- Pipe (instrument)
- Recorder (musical instrument)
- Washint
- Vessel flute
- List of flautists
References
- JSTOR 842168.
4 Aerophones The air itself is the vibrator in the primary sense ... 421 Edge instruments or flutes a narrow stream of air is directed against an edge
- S2CID 205216692.. Citation on p. 248.
- John Noble Wilford (24 June 2009). "Flutes Offer Clues to Stone-Age Music". The New York Times.
- ^ PMID 22575323.
- ^ "Brookhaven Lab Expert Helps Date Flute Thought to be Oldest Playable Musical Instrument, Bone flute found in China at 9,000-year-old Neolithic site". Brookhaven National Laboratory.
- ^ "Music in the Ancient Andes". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
Thirty-two tubular horizontal flutes were discovered in Caral ... made with pelican and condor bones could produce seven different sounds ... the discoveries at Caral proved that music was an integral part of the ritual life of the Andean people 5000 years ago.
- ^ Goss, Clint (22 November 2019). "The Development of Flutes in North America". Flutopedia. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
- ^ a b Sachs, Kurt (1940). The History of Musical Instruments. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 178–179.
- University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.(c. 400 B.C.) says the ch'ih was made of bamboo, its length was 16 inches, one hole opened upwards, and it was blown transversely.
The Erh Ya
- ^ a b c d Sachs, Kurt (1940). The History of Musical Instruments. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 158–159, 180.
- ISBN 978-99946-883-0-2.
Banshi ... \transverse flute ... made from bamboo with six finger holes ... known as Lord Krishna's instrument.
- ^ ISBN 0-600-36421-6.
- ^ a b Sachs, Kurt (1940). The History of Musical Instruments. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 287–288.
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- ^ "Fluter". Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. Archived from the original on 11 January 2015. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
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- ^ Flute History Archived 1 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007.
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- ^ "Music for cavemen". MSNBC. 24 June 2009. Archived from the original on 26 June 2009. Retrieved 26 June 2009.
Scientists say they've found what they consider to be the earliest handcrafted musical instrument in a cave in southwest Germany, less than a yard away from the oldest-known carving of a human. The flute fragments as well as the ivory figurine of a 'prehistoric Venus' date back more than 35,000 years, the researchers report ... the real prize is a nearly complete flute hollowed out from the bone of a griffon vulture ... found in the Hohle Fels cave, just 28 inches (70 centimeters) away from the spot where the prehistoric Venus ... was found
- ^ "Flutes Offer Clues to Stone-Age Music". The New York Times. 24 June 2009. Retrieved 26 June 2009.
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- ^ a b Judith Cohen, "Review of 'Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine: Archaeological, Written, and Comparative Sources', by Joachim Braun". Min-Ad: Israel Studies in Musicology Online. Vol. 3. (2004). http://www.biu.ac.il/hu/mu/min-ad04/BraunRev-2.pdf Archived 19 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine
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Bibliography
- Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. "Bulgaria §II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800–1944, (iii): Instruments". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
- Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6
- Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 1-871082-13-7
- Loewy, Andrea Kapell. 1990. "Frederick the Great: Flutist and composer". College Music Symposium 30 (1): 117–125. JSTOR 40374049. The famous Prussian king (1712–1786) was a composer and patron of music.
- Phelan, James, 2004. The complete guide to the flute and piccolo: From acoustics and construction to repair and maintenance, second edition. [S.l.]: Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004. ISBN 0-9703753-0-1
- Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0-87487-077-1
- Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0-19-510502-8
- Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0-7119-8465-4
- Maclagan, Susan J. "A Dictionary for the Modern Flutist", 2009, Lanham, Maryland, USA: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6711-6
External links
- Ardal Powell. "Flute". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. (by subscription)
- Essay on the Jiahu flutes from the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- A selection of historic flutes from around the world at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Conard, Nicholas J.; Malina, Maria; Münzel, Susanne C. (August 2009). "New flutes document the earliest musical tradition in southwestern Germany". Nature. 460 (7256): 737–740. S2CID 4336590.
- Flute at Curlie
- Flute acoustics Resources on flute acoustics from the University of New South Wales.
- Folk flutes (Polish folk musical instruments)
- Bamboo Flute 16 Feet World's Longest Playble Flute New World Record by DM Office, Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh.