It was used in military contexts and was even played at court. Traveling minstrels acquainted their audiences with it all over Europe, and since they originally came from Germany the instrument also became known as the fistula Germanica. It was usually accompanied by a drum. In the 16th century the flute consort , an ensemble consisting of three different-sized transverse flutes, became an established part of musical practice. At the same time broken consorts , ensembles combining various instruments such as the viol, lute and flute, were also popular.
The most common flute was in D and had a range of D4—D6 which could be extended if the player was skillful enough. Since the instrument was tuned to D the notes of other keys could only be produced either by half covering the finger-holes or by using cross-fingerings. This gave the instrument a certain chromaticism but meant that intonation remained uncertain, which placed the flute at a disadvantage compared to the other woodwinds.
From the middle of the 17th century the flute underwent several sweeping changes. From onward it consisted of three separate parts: the cylindrical headjoint, the body with six finger-holes, and the footjoint. The body and footjoint were conical. An additional hole was added to the footjoint and fitted with a key to make D playable.
These innovations, which probably originated from the Hotteterres, a French flute-making family, represent the start of the development of the transverse flute as we know it.
Its wide range and brilliant timbre meant that the transverse flute soon became a serious rival to the recorder. The recorder or fistula Anglica , an end-blown instrument, had originated in England and gained popularity in Europe at the same time as the transverse flute, becoming established as an orchestral instrument.
But from the middle of the 18th century the description flauto in musical scores no longer referred to the end-blown recorder but the transverse flute which had hitherto been described as the flauto traverso. The sound quality of the baroque transverse flute was still far from homogeneous and consistent, however.
The irregularities in its range and the subsidiary notes which resulted from the use of cross-fingerings and had a different timbre were felt to be irksome in modulations. The introduction of the exchangeable body is attributed to the virtuoso flutist Pierre Gabriel Buffardin ca. Today this instrument is known as the "baroque flute.
Theobald Boehm, the German wind instrument manufacturer, demonstrated a revolutionary new type of flute at the Paris Exhibition of This flute had a metal tube with numerous keys attached.
With earlier flutes, it had been difficult to even get a note out of them, and the intervals between the notes had been variable. Boehm's instrument was a dramatic improvement, however, and overcame these shortcomings.
With his major refinements, Boehm essentially created the modern-day flute. Musical Instrument Guide. The origins of the Flute The birth of the flute. But though the Ancient Greeks studied the mathematical aspect of music, they hardly developed musical instruments at all. In fact, most of the music and the musical instruments they studied were imported from Asia. Instrumental music was considered to be taking its inspiration from speech, and therefore was looked down on by many as an entertainment for lower class society.
Representations of musical instruments abound in Greek and Roman art, but most of these are stringed instruments. From these pictures that we know pipes were used especially to encourage men during athletics. However, these pipes were most likely reed pipes, and not true flutes. The first true depiction of a flute in Rome is from AD.
Stamped on the face of a coin from the Syrian town of Caesarea, the flute shown is even a transverse flute. The history of the flute in Etruria starts with a relief on an urn from an Etruscan tomb depicting the head and shoulders of a musician playing the transverse flute.
The player holds the flute to his right, his fingers are over finger holes in the flute, and the flute includes a embouchure hole about one quarter along the tube. Music historian Curt Sachs lists four different types of flutes first present in China, each with distinct names as found in written documents. The first appear in the twelfth or eleventh centuries BC,. The flutes of China also traveled to Japan and were influential on the earliest Japanese flute designs.
However, what is interesting is how much importance the flute held in Indian society. The transverse flute also shows up immediately alongside the pan pipes.
Depictions of the transverse flute first show up in temple reliefs at Sanchi, central India. Boehm was born in Munich and was trained as a jeweler and goldsmith. His aptitude for music was very apparent as a young child, and by he was dividing his careers among that of goldsmith, flutemaker and professional flutist in the orchestra of the royal court in Munich. By , Boehm had put together a workshop to manufacture instruments. In , while visiting London, Boehm attended a concert of Charles Nicholson whose flute had unusually large finger holes which produced an exceptionally large and fine tone.
Realizing that this tone would have to be imitated for a concert flutist to be successful, and understanding that the tone holes would have to be spaced for good intonation rather than for the convenience of the fingers of the player, Boehm designed a new mechanism that functioned as an extension of the fingers. This conical flute of was gradually accepted by the most important players of the time, and by Boehm had licensed flutemakers in London and Paris to manufacture this new instrument.
In , Boehm continued to perfect the flute while studying acoustics with Carl von Schafhautl at the University of Munich. In , Boehm produced a radically different instrument with a cylindrical body, a foot joint and a parabolic head joint. The tone holes on this instrument were even larger than the instrument and Boehm had to design padded cups for each hole.
This new instrument has received only a few relatively unimportant modifications throughout the 20th century and it is a tribute to his genius that Boehm's flute will remain unchanged into the 21st century. So, the tradition and origin of the Gemeinhardt flute can be traced directly to the 19th century and Theobald Boehm's factory. Email us here , or call us 1 or M-F a.
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