Five-key flute Five-key flute The five-key flute is a musical instrument once common in school marching bands, and composed of wood with metal keys. It is a transposing instrument, most commonly in Bb, this variant being known as the Bb flute and sounding one tone below the orchestral piccolo. The next most common variant is the Eb flute, sounding a fifth below the Bb flute and used as its bass instrument in band harmonies. It is now often found in British military corps of drums, often playing various regimental marches. As the name suggests, the five-key flute most commonly has five keys,
Eunuch flute France, adds Mersennus, and they had the advantage over other kinds of reproducing more nearly the sound of the voice. The Irish writer Samuel Beckett wrote a series of fifty-nine small poems in French called mirlitonnades after the instrument. The eunuch flute's sound highly resembles a kazoo. The eunuch flute, unlike a kazoo, is held horizontally against the mouth while the user vocalizes into the aperture. Eunuch flute The eunuch flute, or onion flute, or mirliton (Fr. "flûte eunuque, flûte à l'oignon" and "mirliton"; Ger. "Zwiebelflöte") is a musical instrument of the woodwind family used during the 16th and 17th