Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/601

Rh conoidal bore greatly improved the quality of tone and the production of the higher harmonics of the third octave. Once the conical bore had been adopted, the term flute was exclusively applied to the new instruments, the smaller flutes, then cylindrical, used in the army being designated (q.v.). At the present day in England, France and America, the favourite mode of construction is that introduced by Theobald Boehm, and known as the “cylinder flute with the parabolic head,” of which more will be said further on. The successive opening of the holes and keys on the flute produces the chromatic scale of the first or fundamental octave. By increasing the pressure of the breath and slightly altering the position of the lips over the mouth-hole, the same fingering produces the notes of the fundamental octave in the next octave higher. The third octave of the compass is obtained by the production of the higher harmonics (Fr. sons harmoniques; Ger. Flageolettöne), of the fundamental scale, facilitated by the opening of certain of the finger-holes as “vent holes.” The quality of tone depends somewhat on the material of which the flute is made; silver and gold produce a liquid tone of exquisite delicacy suitable for solo music, cocus-wood and ebonite a rich mellow tone of considerable power suitable for orchestral music. The tone differs further in the three registers, the lowest being slightly rough, the medium sweet and elegiac, and the third bird-like and brilliant. The proportions, position and form of the stopper and of the air chamber situated between it and the embouchure are mainly influential in giving the flute its peculiar slightly hollow timbre, due to the paucity of the upper partials of which according to Helmholtz only the octave and twelfth are heard. Mr Blaikley states, however, that when the fundamental D is played, he can discern the seventh partial. The technical capabilities of the flute are practically unlimited to a good player who can obtain sustained notes diminuendo and crescendo, diatonic and chromatic scales and arpeggios both legato and staccato, leaps, turns, shakes, &c. By the articulation with the tongue of the syllables te-ke or ti-ke repeated quickly for groups of double notes, or of te-ke-ti for triplets, an easy effective staccato is produced, known respectively as double or triple tonguing, a device understood early in the 16th century and mentioned by Martin Agricola, who gives the syllables as de for sustained notes, di-ri for shorter notes, and tel-lel-lel for staccato passages in quick tempo.

Musical instruments, such as flutes, in which a column of air is set in vibration by regular pulsations derived from a current of air directed by the lips of the executant against the side of the orifice serving as embouchure, appear to be of very ancient origin. The Hindus, Chinese and Japanese claim to have used these modes of blowing from time immemorial. The ancient Egyptians had a long pipe held obliquely and blown across the end of the pipe itself at its upper extremity; it was known as Saïb-it and was frequently figured on the monuments. The same instrument, called “nay,” is still used in Mahommedan countries. The oblique aulos of the Greeks, plagiaulos, was of Egyptian origin and was perhaps at first blown from the end as described above, since we know that the Greeks were familiar with that method of blowing in the syrinx or pan-pipe. The instruments preserved at the British Museum having lateral embouchures show, however, that they were also acquainted—probably through the Hindus—with the transverse flute, although in the case of these specimens a reed must have been inserted into the mouth-hole or no sound would have been obtained.

The high antiquity of a lateral embouchure in Europe is generally admitted; the flute evidently penetrated from the East at some period not yet determined. A transverse flute is seen on Indian sculptures of the Gandhara school showing Greek influence, and dating from the beginning of our era (fig. 3). But although the transverse flute was evidently known to the Greeks and Romans, it did not find the same favour as the reed instruments known as auloi. We have no evidence of the survival of the transverse flute after the fall of the Roman empire until it filtered through from Byzantine sources during the early middle ages. Instances of the flute occur on a group of caskets of Italo-Byzantine work of the 9th or 10th century, while of purely Byzantine origin we find examples of flutes in Greek