conoidal bore greatly improved the quality of tone and the
production of the higher harmonics of the third octave. Once
the conical bore had been adopted, the term flute was exclusively
applied to the new instruments, the smaller flutes, then
cylindrical, used in the army being designated fife (q.v.). At
the present day in England, France and America, the favourite
mode of construction is that introduced by Theobald Boehm,
and known as the “cylinder flute with the parabolic head,”
of which more will be said further on. The successive opening
of the holes and keys on the flute produces the chromatic scale
of the first or fundamental octave. By increasing the pressure
of the breath and slightly altering the position of the lips over
the mouth-hole, the same fingering produces the notes of the
fundamental octave in the next octave higher. The third octave
of the compass is obtained by the production of the higher
harmonics (Fr. sons harmoniques; Ger. Flageolettöne), of the
fundamental scale, facilitated by the opening of certain of the
finger-holes as “vent holes.” The quality of tone depends
somewhat on the material of which the flute is made; silver and
gold produce a liquid tone of exquisite delicacy suitable for solo
music, cocus-wood and ebonite a rich mellow tone of considerable
power suitable for orchestral music. The tone differs further
in the three registers, the lowest being slightly rough, the medium
sweet and elegiac, and the third bird-like and brilliant. The
proportions, position and form of the stopper and of the air
chamber situated between it and the embouchure are mainly
influential in giving the flute its peculiar slightly hollow timbre,
due to the paucity of the upper partials of which according to
Helmholtz[1] only the octave and twelfth are heard. Mr Blaikley[2]
states, however, that when the fundamental D is played, he can
discern the seventh partial. The technical capabilities of the
flute are practically unlimited to a good player who can obtain
sustained notes diminuendo and crescendo, diatonic and chromatic
scales and arpeggios both legato and staccato, leaps,
turns, shakes, &c. By the articulation with the tongue of the
syllables te-ke or ti-ke repeated quickly for groups of double notes,
or of te-ke-ti for triplets, an easy effective staccato is produced,
known respectively as double or triple tonguing, a device understood
early in the 16th century and mentioned by Martin
Agricola,[3] who gives the syllables as de for sustained notes,
di-ri for shorter notes, and tel-lel-lel for staccato passages in
quick tempo.[4]
 |
| From Captain Day’s Catalogue, &c., by permission of Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode. |
| Fig. 1.—Eight-keyed Cone Flute by Richard Potter. 18th century. |
 |
| Messrs. Rudall, Carte & Co. |
| Fig. 2.—Boehm Cylinder Flute. Rockstro Model. |
Musical instruments, such as flutes, in which a column of air is set in vibration by regular pulsations derived from a current of air directed by the lips of the executant against the side of the orifice serving as embouchure, appear to be of very ancient origin. The Hindus, Chinese and Japanese claim to have used these modes of blowing from time immemorial. The ancient Egyptians had a long pipe held obliquely and blown across the end of the pipe itself at its upper extremity; it was known as Saïb-it[5] and was frequently figured on the monuments. The same instrument, called “nay,” is still used in Mahommedan countries. The oblique aulos of the Greeks, plagiaulos,[6] was of Egyptian origin and was perhaps at first blown from the end as described above,[7] since we know that the Greeks were familiar with that method of blowing in the syrinx or pan-pipe. The instruments preserved at the British Museum[8] having lateral embouchures show, however, that they were also acquainted—probably through the Hindus—with the transverse flute, although in the case of these specimens a reed must have been inserted into the mouth-hole or no sound would have been obtained.
 |
| Fig. 3.—Transverse Flute. 1st or 2nd century A.D. From the Tope at Amarābati, British Museum. |
The high antiquity of a lateral embouchure in Europe is generally admitted; the flute evidently penetrated from the East at some period not yet determined. A transverse flute is seen on Indian sculptures of the Gandhara school showing Greek influence, and dating from the beginning of our era (fig. 3). But although the transverse flute was evidently known to the Greeks and Romans, it did not find the same favour as the reed instruments known as auloi. We have no evidence of the survival of the transverse flute after the fall of the Roman empire until it filtered through from Byzantine sources during the early middle ages. Instances of the flute occur on a group of caskets[9] of Italo-Byzantine work of the 9th or 10th century, while of purely Byzantine origin we find examples of flutes in Greek
- ↑ Lehre von der Tonempfindung (Braunschweig, 1877).
- ↑ See additions by D. J. B. to article “Flute” in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1904).
- ↑ Musica instrumentalis deutsch (Wittenberg, 1528).
- ↑ See also L’Artusi, Delle imperfettioni della musica moderna (Venice, 1600), p. 4; Gottfried Weber in Cäcilia, Bd. ix. p. 99.
- ↑ See “Les Anciennes Flûtes égyptiennes,” by Victor Loret in Journal asiatique (Paris, 1889), vol. xiv. p. 133 et seq., two careful articles based on the ancient Egyptian instruments still extant. See also Lauth, “Über die ägyptische Instrumente,” Sitzungs. der philos., philolog. und histor. Klasse. der Kgl. bayer. Akad. zu München (1873).
- ↑ See Albert A. Howard, “The Aulos or Tibia,” Harvard Studies, iv. (Boston, 1893), pp. 16-17.
- ↑ Representations of flutes blown as here described have been found in Europe. See Comptes rendus de la commission impériale archéologique (St Petersburg, 1867), p. 45, and atlas for the same date, pl. vi. Pompeian painting given by Helbig, Wandgemälde, No. 7607; Zahn, vol. iii. pl. 31; Museo Borbonnico, pl. xv. No. 18; Clarac, pl. 130, 131, 139; Heuzey, Les Figurines, p. 136.
- ↑ There are two flutes at the British Museum (Catal. No. 84, 4-9 and 5 and 6), belonging to the Castellani collection, made of wood encased in bronze in which the mouthpiece, consisting of the head of a maenad, has a lateral hole bored obliquely into the main tube. This hole was probably intended for the reception of a reed. The pipe is stopped at the end beyond the mouthpiece as in the modern flute. There are six holes. See also the plagiaulos from Halicarnassus in the British Museum described by C. T. Newton in History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus (London), vol. ii. p. 339. The Louvre has two ancient statues (from the villa Borghese) representing satyrs playing upon transverse flutes. Unfortunately these marbles have been restored, especially in the details affecting our present subject, and are therefore examples of no value to us. Another statue representing a flute-player occurs in the British Museum. The instrument has been supposed to be a transverse flute, but erroneously, for the insufflation of the lateral tube against which the instrumentalist presses his lips, could not, without the intervention of a reed, excite the vibratory movement of the column of air.
- ↑ Florence, Carrand Collection. See Museo Nazionale Firenze, Catalogo (1898), p. 205, No. 26 (description only). Illustration in Gallerie nazionali italiane, A. Venturi, vol. iii. (1897), p. 263, L’Arte (Rome, 1894), vol. i. p. 24, Hans Graeven, “Antike Vorlagen byzantinischer Elfenbeinreliefs,” in Jahrb. d. K. Preuss. Kunst-Sammlungen (Berlin, 1897), Bd. xviii. p. 11; Hans Graeven, “Ein Reliquienkästchen aus Pirano,” id., 1899, Bd. xx. fig. 2 and pl. iii.
