History of the flute

Musical instruments in which air oscillates due to a jet of air blown into it, broken against the edges of the body wall, are called wind instruments. Sprinkler represents one of the types of wind musical instruments. Outwardly, the tool resembles a cylindrical tube with a thin channel or air hole inside. In the course of the past millennia, this amazing tool has undergone many evolutionary changes before it appeared before us in its usual form. In primitive society, the predecessor of the flute was a whistle, which was used in ritual ceremonies, in military campaigns, on fortress walls. The whistle was a favorite childhood pastime. The material for the manufacture of the whistle was wood, clay, bones. It was a simple tube with a hole. When they blew into it, high-frequency sounds rushed from there.

Over time, people began to make finger holes in whistles. With the help of a similar instrument, called a whistle flute, a person began to extract different sounds and melodies. Later, the tube became longer, the number of cut holes increased, which made it possible to diversify the melodies extracted from the flute. Archaeologists believe that this ancient tool existed about 40 millennia BC. In old Europe and among the peoples of Tibet, there were double and triple whistle flutes, and the Indians, the inhabitants of Indonesia and even China had single and double bow flutes. Here the sound was extracted by exhaling the nose. There are historical documents that testify to the existence of a flute in ancient Egypt about five thousand years ago. In ancient documents, drawings of a longitudinal flute with several holes on the body for fingers were found. Another type – the transverse flute existed in ancient China more than three thousand years ago, in India and Japan – about two thousand years ago.

In Europe, the longitudinal flute was used for a long time. By the end of the 17th century, French masters improved the transverse flute that came from the East, giving it expressiveness and emotionality. As a result of the modernization carried out, the transverse flute sounded in all orchestras already in the 18th century, displacing the longitudinal flute from there. Later, the transverse flute was refined many times, the famous flutist, musician and composer Theobald Boehm gave it a modern form. For a long 15 years, he improved the instrument, introducing many useful innovations. By this time, silver served as the material for making flutes, although wooden instruments were also common. In the 19th century, flutes made of ivory became very popular, there were even instruments made of glass. There are 4 types of flute: large (soprano), small (piccolo), bass, alto. Today, thanks to the virtuoso playing of Romanian musicians, such a kind of transverse flute as the pan flute is very popular in Europe. The tool is a series of hollow tubes of different lengths, made of different materials. This instrument is considered an indispensable musical attribute of the ancient Greek god Pan. In ancient times, the instrument was called a syringa. Widely known are such varieties of the pan flute as Russian kugikls, Indian sampona, Georgian larchami, etc. In the 19th century, playing the flute was a sign of fine tone and an indispensable element of high society.