Alto Flute

About the alto flute

The alto flute is an instrument in the Western concert flute family, pitched below the standard C flute and the uncommon flûte d'amour. It is the third-most common member of its family after the standard C flute and the piccolo. It is characterized by its rich, mellow tone in the lower portion of its range. The bore of the alto flute is considerably larger in diameter and longer than the C flute, and requires a larger column of air (volume of air) from the player, though it also requires a slower airspeed. This gives it a greater dynamic presence in the bottom octave and a half of its range. Its range is from G3 (the G below middle C) to G6 (4 ledger lines above the treble clef staff) plus an altissimo register stretching to D♭7. It uses the same fingerings as the C flute and piccolo. However, the instrument thereof is a transposing instrument in G, which is sounding a perfect fourth lower than written.

British music that uses this instrument often refers to it as a bass flute, which can be confusing since there is a distinct instrument also called the bass flute. This particular naming confusion originated in the fact that the modern C flute is pitched in the same range as the Renaissance tenor flute; implying that a lower-pitched instrument should be called 'bass', following the pattern of other instruments. However, the flute family's pitch-range naming system does not correspond correctly to human voice pitches (see description of ranges in the C flute article).

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article “Alto flute”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.