In the Nara and Heian periods, the term fue mainly referred to wind instruments for gagaku (ancient Japanese court dance and music), including the ryuteki (literally, dragon flute), sho (笙, a traditional Japanese wind instrument), hichiriki (doubled-reed wind instrument), komabue (a flute imported from ancient Korea) and kagurabue (a six-holed horizontal flute) which are still used today, as well as the shakuhachi (vertical bamboo flute) and sho (簫, Chinese end-blown flute).
奈良時代・平安時代において笛というと主に雅楽の管楽器であり、現在の龍笛（竜笛）、笙、篳篥、高麗笛、神楽笛のほか尺八、簫（しょう）なども用いられていた。