What style of music does a flute play?

Answer 1

The Flute has a long history. The Old Testament names Jubal as "the Father of all who play the harp and flute" (Gen 4:21) By the Jewish Calender, that accounts for over 5000 years!

The term 'flute' has not always referred to the silver or gold flute seen in today's symphony orchestras. In fact, there are so many instruments that come under the heading of 'flute' that the modern Orchestral flute has to be differentiated from the rest, either as 'Orchestral flute' or 'Boehm-system flute' or, to use the names it has borne for the last 400 years, German flute or Transverse flute.

The first transverse flutes ('cross blown', because they are held sideways to the body and played by blowing across a hole in the side of the instrument) are not known. They were developed simultaneously with end-blown flutes, either tubes with a sharpened edge or with a "fipple" or block used to develop a "windway" to direct the air against a sharpened edge of a hole formed in the tube. The cross flute is clearly identified by the term Piffaro in the Renaissane era, where it was used in families, with soprano, alto, tenor and even bass sizes.

In the baroque era, the recorder (a fipple flute) was most often called just 'flute' and the cross flute was identified as "flauto traversiere" (transverse flute) or German flute. Both instruments were extremely popular, although a surprisingly small number of pieces survive which employ them side-by-side. The treatises of the time taught, generally, the flute, recorder and oboe together. The oboe is often presented, in fact, as if it is just a recorder with an oboe reed!

However, the recorder and flute are quite different. The recorder's windway controls how the breath of the player strikes the sharp edge, and it is a 'seven hole' fingering system. The transverse flute is essentially a 'six hole pipe' much like the pennywhistle, and the player's breath goes directly from the player's lips to the sharpened edge of the embouchure hole. This gives the player great control, and actually allows them a greater range both of dynamics and of pitch. For this reason, the flute had completely eclipsed the recorder by Mozart's time, even though the flute of Mozart's time was a capricious, difficult and often badly-played annoyance. Mozart reportedly hated the instrument, and responded to it in typical Mozartean fashion: he wrote the most beautiful music for it!

It is likely that the transverse flute was used, along with whistles and recorders, for popular music from ancient times. Certainly this did not stop, not with the stern church of the Medieval era, and, in fact, not ever. Two good examples: Thijs van Leer of Focus (remember their rock hit "Hocus Pocus?") and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.

The Classical era brought with it the development of the orchestra, in which the flute held sway as the melody/soprano of the woodwinds, a position it has held since.

The transverse flute also was, besides the penny whistle, a mainstay of celtic music. It has continued to be so to the present time.

The transverse flute was included in the instruments of the wind bands and Marching Bands throughout history, and it may be that this connection is what leads many saxophonists to double flute and use it in jazz, some varieties of which were established from musicians trained by plantation owners to play french Marching music, and who were allowed their instruments in their off hours without restrictions.

All in all, the flute has had a part in nearly every kind of ensemble, and nearly every variety of music, nearly and every nation on the planet!