The Irish flute is a conical-bore, simple-system, wooden flute of the type favoured by classical flautists of the early 19th century, or to a flute of modern manufacture derived from this design. The majority of traditional Irish flute players use a wooden, simple-system flute.
Matt Molloy playing flute in Westport in March 2000
Charles Nicholson with flute, 1834 portrait
Michael McGoldrick in Lorient in 2013.
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. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute produces 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.
Shinobue and other flutes
Statue of Krishna playing a flute
Chinese women playing flutes, from the 12th-century Song dynasty remake of the Night Revels of Han Xizai, originally by Gu Hongzhong (10th century)
Bone flute made of a goat's tibia, 11th–13th century AD.