FLUTE

(Ital. fauto; Fr. flute), a woodwind instrument which produces sound by the player partly covering the ‘embouchure’ or mouth-hole with the lower lip, and blowing against the opposite side of the mouth-hole. The f,, which is a very ancient instrument, consisted of one piece in its original form, and until comparatively recent times had only finger-holes and no keys. The old Flute-a-bec. was played straight to the mouth. The ‘transverse’ f. was not known until a few cent’s ago, and the modern instrument of this type has been carried to a high pitch of perfection by a succe ion of improvements, due among others to Quantz, Boehm, Siccama, Clinton, and Carte. First one key then others were introduced, until the present eight-keyed f. was evolved. By this means the player was enabled to give the complete chromatic scale with a fair amount of accuracy. But the f. was still an unsatisfactory instrument until the middle of the XIX. cent. when an immense improvement in tone was effected. Boehm replaced the ‘cone’ f. (with conical body and cylindrical head) by the ‘cylindrical’ f. (with cylindrical body and conical head). This change, together with the substitution of open for closed keys, gave the f. a much more perfect quality of tone and intonation. { ye