FLUTE, in music, is a general term applied to wood-wind instruments consisting of a pipe pierced with lateral holes and blown directly through the mouthpiece without the intervention of a reed.
The flute family is classified according to the type of mouth piece used, i.e., (I) those with the simple lateral mouth-hole or embouchure which necessitates holding the instrument in a trans verse position ; those with the whistle or fipple mouthpiece which allows the performer to hold the instrument vertically in front of him ; (3) those having no mouthpiece of any sort, in which the column of air is set in vibration by blowing obliquely across the open end of the pipe, as in the ancient Egyptian nay, and the pan-pipe or syrinx (q.v.).
Of these the transverse flute has now entirely superseded, not only the obsolete third class, but also the whistle flute, which has survived only in the so-called penny whistle, in the "flute-work" of the organ (q.v.), and in the French flageolet.
The Transverse Flute or German Flute includes the concert flute, known both as flute in C and as flute in D, the piccolo (q.v.) or octave flute, and the fife (q.v.), and consists of a tube open at one end and nominally closed at the other by means of a plug or cork stopper. Virtually, however, the tube is an open one giv ing the consecutive harmonic series of the open pipe or of a stretched string.
The compass of the modern flute is three octaves with chromatic semitones from middle C upwards. The sound is produced by holding the flute transversely with the embouchure turned slightly outwards, the lower lip resting on the nearer edge of the em bouchure, and blowing obliquely across, not into, the orifice. The flat stream of air from the lips, known as the air-reed, breaks against the sharp outer edge of the embouchure. The current of air, thus set in a flutter, produces in the stationary column of air within the tube a series of pulsations or vibrations caused by the alternate compression and rarefaction of the air and generating sounds of a pitch proportional to the length of the stationary column, which is practically somewhat longer than the length of the tube. The length of this column is varied by opening the lateral finger-holes.
The bore of the early flute with six finger-holes was invariably cylindrical throughout, but towards the end of the 17th century a modification took place, the head joint alone remaining cylin drical while the rest of the bore assumed the form of a cone having its smallest diameter at the open end of the tube. The conical bore greatly improved the quality of tone and the produc tion 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 fifes (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," though the conical type is still usually employed in military bands.
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, only the octave and twelfth are heard.
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, turn, shakes, etc., with the greatest facility.
Instruments of the flute type appear to be of very ancient origin. The Hindus, Chinese and Japanese all claim to have had them from time immemorial, the like applying to the Egyptians, and also to the Greeks and Romans.
The first essentially western European trace of the transverse flute occurs in a German ms. of the i 2th century, the celebrated Hortus deliciarum of the abbess Herrad von Landsperg, in which Fol. 221 shows a syren playing upon an instrument of this type, which Herrad explains in a legend as a tibia.
According to Quantz, it was in France, and about the middle of the 17th century, that the first modern modifications were introduced in the manufacture of the flute, including the aban donment of the cylindrical bore in favour of a conical one, and the introduction of keys. But no maker had as yet devoted his attention to the rational division of the column of air by means of the lateral holes, and it was left for Theobald Boehm, a Bavarian maker, to embody this and many other improvements in the completely remodelled instruments which he brought out in 1832 and in 1846.
The old English fipple flute or bec is described under the headings RECORDER and FLAGEOLET. (X.) In architecture flute describes vertical channels or curved sink ages used in a series for decorative purposes, especially when em ployed upon the shafts of columns. Flutes may be separated from each other by a sharp edge or ridge known as an arris, or by a small, vertical flat surface known as a fillet. The earliest known flutes occur in Egyptian columns, where they are obviously the result of the attempt to decorate simply the piers of a rockcut tomb. If the corners are cut off a square pier, an octagonal pier results ; if its corners are in turn cut off, one of 16 sides. Such piers are com mon in the tombs at Beni Hassan (12th dynasty) . In many, the sides are made slightly concave in order to emphasize the vertical lines at the corners. The result is a fluted pier. In the temple at Karnak (c. 1400 B.c.), and that of Queen Hatshepsut, at Deir-el Bahri (c. 1500 B.C.), similar fluted supports appear. Such piers are sometimes known as Proto-Doric.
Whether borrowed from the Egyptians or developed independ ently, flutes became universal in Greek Doric building. In early ex amples they are segmental in plan, but later a section approximat ing an elliptical curve, or one formed with three centres, was the most common type as such a curve gave greater emphasis to the line of the arris, without too great depth in the flute itself. In columns of the Ionic and Corinthian orders the flutes are separated by fillets and here, more than ever, an elliptical section is neces sary, in order to bring the edges of the flute as nearly parallel to a column radius as possible. In general, flutes separated by fillets are deeper than flutes separated by arrises, varying from one quarter of the width, as in the Ionic columns in the cella of the temple at Bassae (c. 450 B.c.), to one half the width, as in the Erectheum. The number of flutes varies from 16 to 24 in Doric examples, with 20 as the most common number. In Ionic and Corinthian columns, the number of flutes is usually greater, aver aging 24, but in the archaic temple of Artemis at Ephesus (c. 500 B.C.) there are 52. Similarly in the Persian palace columns of Susa and Persepolis, obviously influenced by Greek work, the number of flutes is great, varying from 3o to 52. Roman columns mostly fol lowed Greek precedent, but with less re finement and a general substitution of semicircular and segmented flutes. in place of the refined Greek ellipses. In some of the smaller Roman examples, particularly in domestic work, the lower portions of the flutes are filled either with a convex moulding known as reeding or by merely filling them to a flat surface in an effort to preserve the arrises and fillets from damage. Twisted, helical or spiral flutes are found occasionally in Roman work, are frequent in mediaeval Italy and were spasmodically used during the high Renaissance and Baroque, as in Sammichele's Bevilacqua palace at Verona . Except where there was direct imitation of Roman work, as in much of the Romanesque of Burgundy and Provence, fluting was not used in mediaeval work outside of Italy.
Flutes are frequently used to decorate horizontal bands, espe cially the coronas, or flat projecting portions of the Corinthian cor nice, and also in friezes, as in much English and American late Georgian work. Fountain basins and sarcophagi are also often fluted, in many cases with flutes not vertical, but taking an S curve. Fluting occurs in mediaeval work only in styles where there was much imitation of Roman work, as the Romanesque of Burgundy and Provence. (T. F. H.)