How many holes does a flute have?

The number of holes of the flute is not fixed, and the tone holes range from five to eight, with seven holes being the majority of the flute. The common six-hole bamboo membrane flute consists of a headjoint, a blow hole (1), a membrane hole (1), tone holes (6), a rear exit hole (1), a front exit hole (2, also known as a cylinder tone) and a tail.

The flute is an ancient traditional musical instrument, and it is also the most representative of the traditional musical instruments with the most national characteristics of the wind instrument. One of the most commonly used horizontal woodwind instruments in traditional Chinese music, the Chinese bamboo flute is generally categorized into the southern qu flute, the northern bang flute, and the alto flute in between. The range can generally reach two octaves more two.

Most flutes are made of bamboo, but there are also stone flutes, jade flutes and flutes made of mahogany, and bone flutes in ancient times. However, the best raw material for making flutes is still bamboo, because bamboo flute sound effect is better and the production cost is lower.

The bamboo used for the flute basically goes through the processes of cutting, lacquering, drilling, sound proofing, winding and engraving after drying in the shade. A special feature of the flute is that it is often inscribed with a Tang poem and the name of the maker on the body of the flute.

The flute is not only rich in playing skills, but also has a variety of varieties, such as the qu flute, bang flute, fixed-key flute, keyed flute, yuping flute, seven-hole flute, eleven-hole flute, etc., and has formed the north and south of the two schools of a very different style.

From the pitch classification, the flute is generally divided into qu flute (flute body is thicker and longer, the pitch is lower, the tone is mellow, more distributed in southern China), bang flute (flute body is more thin and short, the pitch is higher, the tone is bright, more used in northern China opera) and alto flute (shape, pronunciation characteristics between the qu flute and bang flute).