double flute

{{Short description|Ancient Wind Instrument}}

File:Akkordflute and dvojnice.jpg

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The double flute is an ancient category of wind instrument, a set of flutes that falls under more than one modern category in the Hornbostel Sachs system of musical instrument classification. The flutes may be double because they have parallel pipes that are connected with a single duct. They may be "double vertical flutes" without a duct. There are also double-transverse flutes.{{cite book |title= A Survey of Musical Instruments |author= Sibyl Marcuse |place= New York |publisher= Harper & Row |date= 1975 |isbn= 0-06-012776-7 |pages=586–589}}

Double flutes are not the same as double pipes, which are reed instruments.

Background

Flutes use resonant pipes to make their sound, whereas pipes use vibrating reeds. The sounding mechanisms for the two types of instrument are different.

Double flutes can be divided into instruments that consist of a melody pipe matched with a drone pipe, and chord flutes in which the instruments can play the same melody at the same time in two different pitches.

Some forms of double flute include:

Some forms that are reed pipes, not double flutes include:

Gallery

File:Aztec double flute.jpg|Aztec double flute uses an air duct to produce sound through the holes in the top of each pipe.

File:Double fipple flute played side-by-side, detail from a painting The Concert of Angels by Gaudenzio Ferrari.jpg|European variant from the Renaissance.

File:Double flutes from "The Assumption of the Virgin" by Matteo di Giovanni.jpg|Renaissance recorders played double.

File:Double fipple flutes, detail of painting The Concert of Angels by Gaudenzio Ferrari.jpg|3-hole tabor-pipes played in a pair, Renaissance.

References