Flute

The flute is among the oldest instruments we know of. Bone examples more than 40,000 years old have been found in southern Germany, and every major culture has since developed its own tradition: the Chinese dizi, the Andean quena, the Japanese shakuhachi, the Irish wooden flute, the Persian ney, the Hindustani bansuri. The forms vary enormously. End-blown, side-blown, with a fipple or without, cylindrical bore or conical, metal or bamboo or clay. Some are built for concert halls, others for late-night sessions, others for solo meditation in a forest. The thread between them is breath and edge, sound shaped by a column of moving air.