Image: Wikimedia Commons

flute

Musical instrument of the woodwind family

Also known as edge-blown aerophones · transverse flute

Instance of: type of musical instrument
Subclass of: wind instrument
1
Sources
1.Stated in Revision of the Hornbostel-Sachs Classification of Musical Instruments by the MIMO Consortium
View statement on Wikidata ↗
, woodwind instrument

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, flutes are edge-blown aerophones. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist or flutist.

Overview

All data

88 statements · 22% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Earliest date: 35th millennium BCE
Hornbostel-Sachs classification: 421
1
Sources
1.Stated in Revision of the Hornbostel-Sachs Classification of Musical Instruments by the MIMO Consortium
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Used by: flautist
Has list: list of musical instruments by Hornbostel–Sachs number: 421
Unicode character: 🪈

On other databases

67 identifiers linking flute across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

22%

externally sourced

Source last edited August 2, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). flute (Q11405). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/flute-Q11405