Dictionary of Music - Birding America

flute 145sizes, the most common of which is the sopranopitched in B-flat (or sometimes C), with the samerange as the cornet, from the E below middle C tothe B-flat below high C. Frequently used in nineteenth-centurybands, the flugelhorn today is oftenreplaced by the cornet but is still used in jazz, andoccasionally in the orchestra (by Stravinsky,Vaughan Williams).fig. 103 p/u from p. 148flüssig (flY′siKH) German. A direction to performin a smooth, flowing manner.flute Any of a large group of wind instrumentsconsisting of a hollow tube and sounded by blowinga stream of air against the sharp edge of an openingat or near one end of the tube. Flutes of one kind oranother have been found among practically everypeople, ancient and modern, ranging from ancientMesopotamia and Egypt to ancient Mexico andPeru. In many respects these differed from the modernorchestral flute, which is closed at one end, isblown from the side, and is normally made of metal.Some were open, some were blown from the endlike a whistle, some were made of clay, and someshaped like a globe rather than a tube. The sideblownancestor of the modern flute dates back atleast to the twelfth century. It was used mainly as amilitary instrument throughout the Middle Ages, theRECORDER (which is end-blown) being used for artmusic. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuriesthe flute was improved and gradually replacedthe recorder in importance, probably owing to itsgreater range and the greater variety of tone colorsand dynamics (degrees of loudness) that it couldproduce. Numerous improvements continued to bemade, many of them by the Hotteterres, a Frenchfamily of woodwind manufacturers and instrumentalistsat the French court. The most famous of them,Jacques Hotteterre (1674–1763), wrote the firstimportant treatise on flute playing (published inParis in 1707) and also composed works for theflute. By 1750 the flute’s importance was established.However, the term “flauto” (Italian for“flute”) still meant, until the eighteenth century, therecorder, the terms “German flute” and “transverseflute” being used for the side-blown flute.One of the main problems of the flute was itscomplicated fingering system, made worse by theawkward placement of holes and keys. This problemwas finally solved in the 1830s by Theobald Böhm,whose system of fingering and keys is still usedtoday. In 1847 Böhm improved the instrument’s toneby redesigning the top section, giving it a slightlytapering convex shape and conical bore (coneshapedinside).The modern orchestral flute consists of a tubeabout two feet long, made of wood or metal, usuallysilver. It is made in three sections: a head joint (whichcontains the mouthpiece), body joint, and tail joint.The body joint has a cylindrical (straight) bore and isclosed at one end. Both it and the tail joint are piercedwith a number of holes that are opened or closed bymeans of keys. The player holds the instrument sidewaysand produces sound by blowing across an opening,called the embouchure, near the closed end of thetube. The flute has a range of three octaves, from middleC to an octave above high C. The tones of the firstfig. 104 p/u from p. 149octave are produced naturally by blowing fairly softlywhile raising the fingers from the keys, one afteranother; the tones of the next octave are produced byOVERBLOWING and employing the same fingering; thetones of the third octave are produced by blowing stillharder and also using a different fingering. The tonequality of the flute varies considerably from the lownotes to the higher ones. The lower tones are breathyand dense, but the high ones are clear, silvery, andpenetrating. The instrument is very agile, and askilled player can readily produce rapid trills, runs,and other ornaments.The flute is one of the four basic woodwindinstruments of the modern orchestra (the others arethe oboe, clarinet, and bassoon), and nearly everycomposition for orchestra written since 1800 containsa part for flute. A few of the many important