What’s Even Worse Than a Flute? Two Flutes!!

The flute holds a unique spot among instruments. Not only is it the oldest among instruments, but it is also the only vocal tool that is found in societies all over the world. Among numerous flutes that have been discovered in archaeological excavations in various parts of the world, the oldest flute is said to go back somewhere around 35,000 years. Produced using a vulture wing bone, the five-holed flute was found in a pre-historic cave in Ulm, Germany. Several other pre-historic flutes have also been located in parts of China, Sumeria, India and North America proving that the flute isn’t just hands down the most seasoned among the musical instruments but, was also the most notable among our predecessors.

The lucidity of the flute lies in its effortlessness. At first, produced from carved bone, and later from bamboo and wood, the modest flute served many needs – from correspondence between and inside clans, with animals, and more specifically, to give melodic diversion. In India, God Krishna is viewed as an expert of the bamboo flute and is constantly depicted with one.

From the times immemorable, the flute has held its place as an instrument of eminence and has been included in many ensembles, groups, and melodic synthesis. However, comparative in construction, the flutes are differentiated in the manner they are played and in the tone they produce.

The Indian flute is generally made of bamboo and was autonomously evolved from its western equivalent. Originally found and practiced in folk music, the Indian classical flute was evolved into a classical musical instrument by legendary flutist Pannalal Ghosh. He modified the tiny folk instrument into a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) fitting for performing traditional Indian classical music. Contrasted to its folk counterpart, the Indian classical flute has an additional opening, the seventh, to oblige the whole scope of conventional ragas. Pandit Raghunath Prasanna further created different methods that would permit the flute to steadfastly repeat the nuances and subtleties of Indian classical tones. Aside from the Indian classical flute, the bansuri, with six finger openings and one embouchure opening, is famous in North Indian Hindustani music. South Indian Carnatic artists utilize the cross-fingering method and play the eight holed ‘velu’ or ‘pullanguzhal’.

The western concert flute was created from nineteenth-century German flute. The western concert flute is produced using different materials including wood, nickel, metal, silver, gold and at times even platinum. The modern concert flute uses a flute range created by Theobald Boehm. Known as the Boehm framework, the western flute has a scope of three octaves, beginning from centre C. This makes it one of the greatest regular symphonic instruments, except for the piccolo, which plays an octave higher.

The Chinese and Japanese flutes are of numerous sorts. They come in various sizes, structures (with or without a reverberation film), several openings (from 6 to 11) and sounds (distinctive keys). The most famous Chinese flutes are the ‘bangd’, ‘quid’, ‘xindi’, and ‘dadi’, the most well known being the in an upward direction played bamboo flute called the xiao. Chinese flutes are generally made of bamboo, yet they additionally come in wood, jade, bone, and iron. Japanese flutes called ‘fue’ are principally of two sorts – the cross over and end-blown. They hold a significant spot in Japanese music and can be found in all customary Japanese syntheses.

Instruments firmly recognized with the flute:

The ‘sodina’, ‘suling’ and ‘sring’ are altogether instruments that are firmly identified with what is known as the modern flute. The ‘sodina’ is an ‘end-blown flute’ that is native to the island province of Madagascar and holds the fame as perhaps the most established instrument in this island country. The ‘sodina’ bears an extraordinary likeness to the ‘suling’, another end-blown flute discovered regularly in Southeast Asia and especially Indonesia. Archaeologists examining the ‘sodina’ and ‘suling’ have proposed that the island’s unique pioneers emigrating from Borneo might have conveyed the archetype of the ‘sodina’ to the island of Madagascar.

The ‘sring’ or ‘blul’, a somewhat small, end-blown flute with nasal tone quality and the pitch of a piccolo, is perhaps the most prominent of all national Armenian instruments. Mainly found in the Caucasus locale of Eastern Armenia, the ‘sring’ is made of wood or stick, normally with seven finger openings and one thumbhole, which helps in creating a diatonic scale. The exceptionally old ‘sring’ has been famous for being used chiefly by shepherds, who use it to play different signals and tunes.