Development of the flute from pre-history to modern days

Abstract

A flute is a “keyed woodwind instrument consisting of a cylindrical tube which is stopped at one end, and which has a side hole over which air is blown to produce the tone”, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Unfortunately, this definition is only true of modern flutes. The first flutes were simple pieces of bone that had been fashioned with drilled holes. These prehistoric flutes have been discovered as artifacts in many places around the world. However, through time keys were added to expand the note range of the instrument, and to improve the intonation of the notes that were played. These improvements were added slowly, but as interest in the instrument grew, so did new ideas about its technical properties. In this paper I discuss how the flute progresses through time from a simple bone to the metal-keyed instruments of