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,
Recorder (musical instrument) other instruments played by the "jongleurs" is uncertain. The introduction of the Baroque recorder to England by a group of French professionals in 1673 popularized the French name for the instrument, "flute douce", or simply "flute", a name previously reserved for the transverse instrument. Until about 1695, the names "recorder" and "flute" overlapped, but from 1673 to the late 1720s in England, the word "flute" always meant recorder. In the 1720s, as the transverse flute overtook the recorder in popularity, English adopted the convention already present in other European languages of qualifying the word "flute", calling the recorder variously the