The ''double flute'' is an ancient category of

wind instrument A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitc ...

, a set of flutes that falls under more than one modern category in the

Hornbostel Sachs Hornbostel is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Chuck Hornbostel (1911–1989), American middle-distance runner * Erich Moritz von Hornbostel (1877–1935), Austrian ethnomusicologist ** Hornbostel-Sachs, a classificat ...

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 is also a double-transverse flutes. Double flutes are not the same as double pipes, which are reed instruments.

Background

Flutes use

resonant Resonance describes the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of an applied periodic force (or a Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system on which it acts. When an oscillati ...

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 types of

Native American flute The Native American flute is a flute that is held in front of the player, has open finger holes, and has two chambers: one for collecting the breath of the player and a second chamber which creates sound. The player breathes into one end of th ...

s * the Serbian dvojnice, can be either a flute or a reed pipe. * the Bulgarian dvoyanka *the Indian and Pakistani Alghoza *the

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

and Pakistani Donali, pair of

fipple flute The term fipple specifies a variety of end-blown flute that includes the flageolet, recorder, and tin whistle. The Hornbostel–Sachs system for classifying musical instruments places this group under the heading "Flutes with duct or duct flu ...

s * the Russian double svirel, pair of fipple flutes Some forms that are reed pipes, not double flutes include: * the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

aulos An ''aulos'' ( grc, αὐλός, plural , ''auloi'') or ''tibia'' (Latin) was an ancient Greek wind instrument, depicted often in art and also attested by archaeology. Though ''aulos'' is often translated as "flute" or " double flute", it was ...

, pair of (double-reed) pipes. * the Indian and Pakistani pungi, reed pipes * Mijwiz

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.

References

{{reflist Flutes Hornbostel–Sachs