Instruments
Flute
A flute in the most general sense of the word is a wind instrument in which the breath of the performer generates sound by striking the edges of an opening in the column into which the air is blown. In modern language, the word "flute" refers to the transverse flute, a flute held crosswise so that the player can direct his or her breath directly over the instrument's opening. That opening functions exactly like the top of a beer bottle that produces sound when one blows across its rim. The transverse flute, with its greater range and more liquid tone, supplanted the end-blown recorder (in French flûte à bec, or mouth flute) during the eighteenth century. Aside from its prominent role in the classical orchestra, the flute has been particularly important in modern jazz, whose players have expanded its already wide vocabulary of tones and qualities of sound.