Flutes - The Nerve of Melody

You might have seen many musical instruments such as Keyboard, Trumpets,Tabla, Drums, Flutes, Piano and Congo, etc. A musical instrument is a melodic framework to produce sounds.

In ancient times, musical instruments were also used by warriors to mark their victory. Some instruments such as Conch Shells, Trumpet and Drums are used in Hindu and Buddhist religious ceremonies. Later, the society developed musical compositions for entertainment purpose also.

Musical instruments can be classified into five categories based upon the five prime elements such as earth, water, air, fire and space. The classification of musical instruments is given below:

1. Gaiaphones: It is based upon earth and these instruments are solid in nature. e.g. Congo, Tabla, Bongos and Piano, etc 

1. Hydraulophone: These instruments are played with the physical contacts of fluids. e.g. Water Flutes.
   

1. Aerophones: Aerophones primarily create sound by vibrating a body. e.g. flutes, trumpet, Bagpiper and saxophone, etc.

1. Plasmaphones: Plasmaphones create sounds in plasma or ionized gas.

1. Quintephones: Quintephones are based upon ideas or informatics. e.g. Keyboard and Electronic Guitar, etc.

However, it is not possible to classify every instrument into the above mentioned classes.

It is difficult to elaborate each category and the instruments that fall into. Therefore, let's discuss about the oldest musical instrument of the world - 'The Flute'. The Flute falls under Aerophones. It is a believed that a simple flute is the oldest musical instrument of the world which came into existence approx 67000 years ago. To begin with, it was a woodwind instrument, which is a sub-category of wind instruments. Ancient flutes were made of wood, grass and reeds. But, now, Flutes are available in glass, tin, copper and bronze, etc. There are two types of flutes i.e. open flutes and closed flutes.

You may be curious to find out how a flute produces sound and how it changes the pitch of that sound. A flute produces sound when we blow air across its hole. It creates vibration of air at the hole. A flute player can direct the pitch of the sound by opening and closing the holes of a flute.                He can also change pitch by varying the air pressure.

An open flute produces sound when we direct a focused stream of air across the sharp edge of the flute. However, in the case of a closed flute, we need to blow air into a duct to produce sound.