[Aztlan] Ocarinas/Flutes

[Mary Hopkins]

OK, semi-retired semi-flutist will come out of retirement & be heard on 
this one.

The broadest definition of a flute is that it's an air-reed instrument. It 
creates sound by splitting a column of air, exactly the way you do when 
you (or us old-timers anyhow) blow across the mouth of a soda bottle.

There are 2 ways of creating an air reed. One is directly, by blowing 
across an aperture. This is what's done w/ a coke bottle, or a cross-blown 
flute. Cross-blown flutes generally have holes on the side near one end.

The other way is by using a fipple. You blow into a narrow tube. This can 
be the square mouth of a police whistle, or the semi-blocked mouth of a 
recorder. (The block is called a fipple, and a recorder is a kind of 
fipple flute.) The device mechanically directs the airstream against an 
edge, which then splits the column of air and creates sound.

I don't have Kim's expertise about the clay MesoAmerican versions of all 
of these.

By me, a flute is tubular and open-ended, can be cross-blown or fipple. 
The holes can vary a lot; they're not the defining thing. They can go all 
the way from 2 or 3 vaguely round holes, all the way to the fancy 
machinery of a Boehm flute.

An ocarina, I agree, is fat and closed-ended. Don't know how much they 
vary; I've never been able to play them.

A whistle, so far as I'm concerned, can't be crossblown. It has to have a 
fipple. It can be an unstopped (i.e. one-pitch) noisemaker. The name, 
however, is also used for some kinds of fipple flute, including the tin 
whistle that's used in Irish music.

Not all flutes are high-pitched. Both cross-blown flutes and recorders 
come in alto, tenor, and bass varieties.

MH

On Sat, 7 Mar 2009, Sid Hollander wrote:

> Flute: A high-pitched woodwind instrument; a slender tube closed at one end
> with finger holes on one end and an opening near the closed end across which
> ..
>
> Flute: A woodwind instrument consisting of a metal, wood or bamboo tube with
> a row of circular holes and played by blowing across a hole in the side
>
> Fooled me!  The closed end is the end NEAR which there is a hole that the
> player blows across.
>
>
> Sid Hollander
> Merida, Yucatan
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