The vertical flute is either (1) a rim-blown (notched or unnotched) flute, (2) a tubular duct flute, with tapered bore or (3) a transversely blown flute, Giorgi flute, designed to be played in an upright position. The vertical flute is contrasted with the "cross flute" (or "

transverse flute A transverse flute or side-blown flute is a flute which is held horizontally when played. The player blows across the embouchure hole, in a direction perpendicular to the flute's body length. Transverse flutes include the Western concert flut ...

") and " globular flute", and in stricter usage may refer only to the first category above (Marcuse 1975, 187). Rim-blown vertical flutes include the Jiahu flute, the xiao, the

danso The ''danso'' (also spelled ''tanso'') is a Korean notched, end-blown vertical bamboo flute used in Korean folk music. It is traditionally made of bamboo, but since the 20th century it has also been made of plastic. It was imported from China ...

, the kaval, the ney, the quena, and the shakuhachi. The most familiar ducted vertical flutes are the

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

tin whistle The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria ...

, and

tabor pipe The three-hole pipe, also commonly known as tabor pipe or galoubet, is a wind instrument designed to be played by one hand, leaving the other hand free to play a tabor drum, bell, psalterium or ''tambourin à cordes'', bones, triangle or other pe ...

. One historical variety has a slightly tapered (decreasing diameter) bore with 6 tone holes on the top side. A dorsal thumb hole is absent. It sometimes has a small foot section with a single key. The range is a little more than two octaves and the common keynote is "D" major. The instrument is often mistaken for a recorder with keynote C, but. like the tin whistle and tabor pipe, relies on overblowing to change registers instead of pinching open a thumbhole, recorder style, to "cancel" the fundamental harmonic ( Bessarabov 1941, p62 – p63). An unusual case of a transversely blown but vertically held flute is a special variation of the standard flute, or, more specifically, the

Western concert flute The Western concert flute is a family of transverse (side-blown) woodwind instruments made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist (in British English), flutist (in Am ...

, designed to be played in an upright position. This version uses a standard cross-blown flute head joint bent in a "?" question mark shape.

Sources

* Bessaraboff, Nicholas. 1941. ''Ancient European Musical Instruments: An Organological Study of the Musical Instruments in the Leslie Lindsey Mason Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston'', with a preface by Edwin J. Hipkiss and a foreword by

Francis William Galpin Francis William Galpin (December 25, 1858 December 30, 1945) was an English cleric and antiquarian musicologist. He was known as a collector of old musical instruments. Life Born in Dorchester, Dorset, Galpin was educated at Sherborne and Trini ...

. ambridge Published for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, by the Harvard University Press. * Marcuse, Sybil. 1975. ''Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary''. Revised edition. The Norton Library. New York: W. W. Norton. . Flutes {{Recorder-stub