We have scattered knowledge of flutes from many ancient cultures, some of it 
bound up with fascinating stories and legends. In this article, though, we'll 
be dealing only with the direct line of our flute's genealogy. This has been 
traced back in detail to the 1500s, the Renaissance in Western Europe. This is 
a time when many musical instruments were undergoing development. 

No keywork had yet been developed. This put serious limitations on Renaissance 
flutes and their makers. One of the major of these was the number of holes 
that could be used. They couldn't put holes for every note, sharps and flats 
included. There just weren't enough fingers to go around. So they used the 
most reasonable arrangement available to them at the time. Six holes were 
arranged to play the scale of the flute's low note. Six fingers is all they 
needed. One note is played with all fingers on, one with all fingers off, and 
the octave note with all fingers on again. 

There were two methods by which some sharps and flats could be played. One 
method was cross- or fork-fingering. This involved closing holes beneath the 
first open hole. For instance, for the note played by covering the first two 
holes from the mouthhole, you could get the flat by leaving the next hole 
open, and closing the next two or three holes after that. This added more 
resistance to the air vibrating at the third hole. The added resistance 
lowered the note, giving its flat. 

The other method, half-holing, also worked by adding resistance. In this 
method, though, the hole's resistance was increased by covering half of it 
with the finger. 

There were a number of problems involved in these ways of getting sharps and 
flats. First of all, since you were increasing the resistance of the hole that 
the note came through, the volume would be diminished, and the tone would be 
less clear. There was especial trouble on the low notes of the flute. Cross-
fingering couldn't be used here at all, since there weren't enough holes below 
the open hole to accomplish it. But half-holing too worked poorly here, 
because low notes have an even harder time getting out resistant holes than 
high notes do. So, on the very low notes of the flute, playing sharps and 
flats was difficult or impossible. 

Secondly, tuning was often not as good for the sharps and flats, especially 
where the hole was too small to half-hole, and cross-fingering had to be used. 
Finally, in music that required any sort of speed, these fingerings were 
incredibly clumsy. The result of all this was that it was a real problem for 
flutists to play in keys requiring many of these fingerings.

Flute makers were also limited by two more considerations involving the human 
hand: the holes had to be small enough for the fingers to cover them, and 
close enough together for the fingers to reach them.

The flutemakers of that time felt that holes between 5/16 and 7/16 inch were 
about the right size to be closed comfortably by the fingers. Holes of this 
size, however, weren't really large enough to give full volume, or close 
tuning between the octaves. The problem was especially great on the longest 
flute, where the relationship between the hole size and the required larger 
flute diameter was the worst. 

There was also some trouble in bringing all the holes within reach of their 
assigned fingers, the problem again becoming worse for the longer flutes. When 
problems of stretching came up, the flutemaker had to move holes, either up or 
down the flute. Since this would also change the tuning of the holes, they 
then had to adjust them in some other way to restore the proper notes. 

There were various method of doing this. The most common was to change the 
hole size. A hole that was brought up the flute so that a finger could reach 
it, would produce a higher note. It might then be made smaller to flatten it 
back down. If a hole was moved down the flute, it could be expanded to 
compensate. If all the holes were too far apart from each other, you could 
make ALL the holes smaller, since smaller holes correctly placed will turn out 
closer together. 

Another method used to either sharpen or flatten the note was to drill it in 
at an angle, so that it hit the inside of the tube farther up or down than 
where it appeared on the surface. Also, if a hole had to be moved down, then 
sharpened back up, it could be undercut.

Of course, any time a hole was moved up, and flattened by increasing its 
resistance, this created greater problems of tuning between the octaves for 
that note. And when different holes were adjusted differently, this also 
created the extra problem of unevenness, in volume, tone, and octave tuning, 
from hole to hole. Besides this, though, sometimes the methods used weren't 
even sufficient to bring a note entirely into tune, and some flutemakers 
didn't bother to use them at all. As you can see, Renaissance flutists had 
serious problems with their instruments.

The first major development away from the "simple" flute of the Renaissance 
came at the end of the 1600s from France. Its origin is not certain, but most 
scholars trace it to the Grande Ecurie (Great School) of Louis XIV. This was a 
collection of some of the finest French musicians and instrument makers of the 
day, who were afforded magnificent salaries and hereditary positions in return 
for keeping the King and his court entertained. In addition, almost unlimited 
time and money were available to them to develop their music and the 
instruments they played it with.

Focused around the Hotteterres, a family of musicians and makers in the 
School, a remodeling was undertaken of all four of the most important 
woodwinds of the time. The oboe, bassoon, and modern recorder were products of 
this effort. The last instrument dealt with was the flute. It was decided 
that, since the D flute was considered the most practical and musically useful 
of the sizes currently in use, that flute would be the size developed.

The new flute was divided for the first time into the three sections, or 
joints, common today: head, body, and foot. This sectioning made the hollowing 
of the flute much easier and also gave better access to the inside of the 
flute when this was needed for tuning corrections. It also allowed the 
musician some tuning of the entire instrument, by pulling out the headjoint.

The most important change in the new flute was in the shape of the inner, 
hollowed-out section, referred to as the bore. The Renaissance flutes had had 
a cylindrical bore (constant diameter throughout). The new flute had a 
cylindrical headjoint, but the main body was given a conical bore, starting 
wide toward the headjoint, and tapering down toward the foot. The footjoint 
was then either cylindrical or tapered in reverse. 

The effect of tapering the tube toward the bottom was to increase the 
resistance of the tube to the air movement inside, flattening the notes. But 
the various harmonics, forming different vibrational patterns inside the tube, 
were affected to different degrees by the form of the tube. The fundamental 
note was flattened the most, and each succeeding harmonic a little less.

The resistance of a flute's holes pushes the higher harmonics, and therefore 
the flute's higher octaves, flat in relation to the fundamental. But, on the 
new flute, the bore reversed the effect, pushing the fundamental flat in 
relation to the higher harmonics. The two factors operating at the same time 
canceled each other out to some extent, so that the conical bore allowed 
better tuning between the octaves. 

The other advantage to this flattening of the notes by the bore was that the 
tube could be made slightly shorter, and the holes could be moved slightly 
higher up and closer together.

The designers of the new flute also introduced smaller holes, averaging around 
1/4 inch. There were two reasons for this. One was that the designers were 
very concerned with fingering ease, and smaller holes allowed them to bring 
all the holes closer together still. The other reason was that, in this 
period, they seem actually to have preferred a small, sweet, pure sound, which 
can only be produced through small holes. 

The resulting increase in tuning inaccuracy was accepted in order to achieve 
that fingering ease and that tone. And tuning remained one of the greatest 
problems of this form of flute throughout the period of its usage. 

The final structural change on the new flute was the addition of one key on 
the footjoint to produce the note D#, which was absolutely impossible to get 
with any special fingering. This was a closed key, meaning it closed its hole 
when at rest and lifted to open the hole when pressed. A strip of metal acted 
as a spring to keep it closed. Pretty much the same key can be found on the 
modern soprano recorder.

The new flute, which we now call the Baroque flute, became the basis of flute 
design for over a century and a half. However, it underwent many additions and 
variations during the 1700s. One feature that came more into prominence, 
especially among the better flutemakers, was chambering of the bore: making 
slight expansions or contractions in the regular taper. Done properly, this 
helped overcome some of the problems in the tuning. Closed keys were used more 
extensively for producing sharps and flats. The development of an open key 
allowed the extension of the flute's range down to C. 

The 1700s was a time of experimentation for the flute, and the early 1800s 
even more so. But, through all these experiments, the basic principles of 
conical bore and fingers coming directly in touch with the main holes went 
unquestioned. That is, until they were questioned by Theobald Boehm.