The Flute Family

Abstract

Abstract Flutes come in a variety of sizes, each with its own distinctive tone, character, idiosyncracies, and musical potential. Variety in flutes is not a modern development; it has been a fact of musical life for centuries. Although the evolution of the flute family is often traced to the sixteenth century recorder consort, transverse flutes, too, have been described and illustrated in works on organology since the Renaissance. Martin Agricola’s Musica instrumentalis deudsch of 1529, one of the earliest sources on musical instruments, shows four sizes of Schweitzer Pfeiffen, which were descendants of the military fife. Michael Praetorius’s Syntagma Musicum (1619-20) shows three sizes of Querfloten or Querpfeiffen, which were similar keyless instruments.