Pipe (instrument) Pipe (instrument) A pipe is a tubular wind instrument in general, or various specific wind instruments. The word is an onomatopoeia, and comes from the tone which can resemble that of a bird chirping. Fipple flutes are found in many cultures around the world. Often with six holes, the shepherd's pipe is a common pastoral image. Shepherds often piped both to soothe the sheep and to amuse themselves. Modern manufactured six-hole folk pipes are referred to as pennywhistle or tin whistle. The recorder is a form of pipe, often used as a rudimentary instructional musical instrument at schools, but so
Tin whistle the modern penny whistle) and such instruments are linked to the development of the English flageolet, French flageolet and recorders of the renaissance and baroque period. The term flageolet is still preferred by some modern tin whistlers who feel this better describes the instrument, as this characterises a wide variety of fipple flutes, including penny whistles. The modern penny whistle is indigenous to the British Isles particularly England, when factory-made "tin whistles" were produced by Robert Clarke from 1840–1889 in Manchester and later New Moston, England. Down to 1900, they were also marketed as "Clarke London Flageolets" or "Clarke Flageolets".