The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind group. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening. According to the instrument classification of Hornbostel-Sachs, flutes are categorized as Edge-blown aerophones.A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist.

Flute in music, generic term for such wind instruments as the fife , the flageolet , the panpipes , the piccolo , and the recorder . The tone of all flutes is produced by an airstream directed against an edge, producing eddies that set up vibrations in the air enclosed in the attached tube. In the transverse flute, the principal orchestral flute today, the edge is on the mouth hole on the side of the instrument, over which the player blows. The oldest archaeological remains of a flute is some 30,000 years old, and the oldest complete, playable instrument is a nearly 9,000-year-old bone flute found in China in 1987. The transverse flute is also an extremely old instrument, universal in ancient and primitive cultures; it was known in Europe by the 9th cent. During the baroque period both the recorder and the transverse flute were used in the orchestra, the latter by Lully in 1672.

The flute is made in the form of an open cylindrical air column about 66 cm long. Its fundamental pitch is middle C (C4) and it has a range of about three octaves to C7. Sound is produced from a flute by blowing onto a sharp edge, causing air enclosed in a tube to vibrate.The modern flute was developed by Theobald Boehm who experimented with it from 1832 to 1847, desiring to give it a bigger tone. He finally produced a parabolic (bowl-shaped) head joint attached to a cylindrical body with open-standing keys and finger pads to cover large finger holes. Since then, other minor improvements have been made. The modern flute usually has a range from middle C (C4) upward for about three octaves. In Europe flutes are often constructed of wood; silver is commonly used in the United States.

The modern flute is about 26 inches in length with and inside diameter of about 3/4", open at one end . The embouchure at which the edgetone is produced is near one end and constitutes a second open end, making the flute an open cylinder in harmonic content. As with other edgetone instruments, the tone production is made more efficient by the coupling of the slit formed by the players lips, the edge, and the air column. The flute has a series of 16 openings in the tube wall, 11 of which can be closed directly by seven fingers and one by the left thumb. The four additional openings can be opened or closed by means of suitably arranged keys.

One advantage of the flute over the recorder is that the player has direct control over the angle at which the air from the lips strikes the embouchure hole. Rolling in or out with the lips relative to the edge gives the player a greater range of volume and expression, and aids the process of overblowing to achieve the higher register. This direct access to the edge also permits the player to make small fine tuning adjustments.