A Glimpse at the History of the Modern Flute
Welcome to the Astute Flute website. Herein is contained a brief introduction to the history of Flutes with photographs and descriptions of the flutes in the Astute Flute collection. It is the hope of the authors that the site will inspire viewer to further explore the world of antique flutes and possible acquire a few examples of their own.
Archeologists consider flutes to be the oldest surviving musical instruments. The earliest examples date back some 30,000 to 40,000 years. These instruments were crafted from bones. The bones provided a natural starting point, being strong, hollow tubes that could be worked with stone age tools to create flutes. Many different shapes and sizes, layout of tone holes and methods of blowing developed. The basic physics of the sound creation is consistent over the entire range of development to this day. The player blows across an edge to set up a vibration in a volume of air within the instrument. Different pitches are achieved by changing the volume of air. The air volume is changed by opening and closing tone holes arranged on the instrument.
Much of the development leading to the modern flute, as well as available examples, are found in the instruments crafted in the last 350 years. At the beginning of that time the flute was a simple tube with a blow hole and six tone holes. A somewhat revolutionary change occurred when a seventh tone hole was added with a key (a mechanical lever) to open and close the hole. From there the development took off. Keys were added. Tone and blow hole size and placement were experimented with. Some of the key mechanisms became elaborate, mechanically advanced creations. During this time there were many alternate lines of development depending on the country of origin and the maker or shop involved.
The lasting revolutionary in the history of the modern flute is Theobald Boehm, a German flutist, composer, inventor and maker. His work leading up to his patent of a metal flute design in 1847 marks the beginnings of the modern flute. The 1847 design is essentially unchanged today. The adoption of the Boehm design was not uniform or immediate. Preferences among performers varied and there was a great deal of overlap of designs as makers produced instruments to satisfy the demands of a diverse market. Most of the flutes produced today are modeled after the Boehm design but active makers can be found reproducing older instruments for specialized markets.
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