Flute

The oldest known existing side blown (transverse) flute was a lacquered bamboo flute that dated from 433 B.C. Up until the 16th Century the transverse flute stayed basically the same instrument. The first major changes were made early in the 1700's by a French family of flute players and makers, the Hotteterre family. They changed the body of the flute from one piece to three pieces. The head joint, the body and the foot joint. By 1780, flutes were appearing in instrumental music compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn.

Boehm (1794-1881) completely redesigned the flute. Instead of being made of wood he used metal. He modified the number, size and layout of the holes, even changing the shape of the mouth hole. This conical flute of 1832 was gradually accepted and by 1843 Boehm had licensed flute makers in London and Paris manufacturing this new instrument. In 1847, Boehm produced a radically different instrument with a cylindrical body, a foot joint and a parabolic head joint. The tone holes on this instrument were even larger and Boehm had to design padded cups for each hole. This new instrument only had a few modifications throughout the 20th century and Boehm's flute remains practically unchanged into the 21st century.

The Flute belongs to the woodwind family