Crossword clues for flageolet
flageolet
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Flageolet \Flag"eo*let`\, n. [F. flageolet, dim. of OF. flaj?l (as if fr. a LL. flautio;us), of fla["u]te, flahute, F. fl?te. See Flute.] (Mus.) A small wooden pipe, having six or more holes, and a mouthpiece inserted at one end. It produces a shrill sound, softer than of the piccolo flute, and is said to have superseded the old recorder.
Flageolet tones (Mus.), the naturel harmonics or overtones of stringed instruments.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
flute-like instrument, 1650s, from French flageolet, diminutive of Old French flajol, from Provençal flajol, which is of unknown origin.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context music English) A type of small flute of the fipple family. 2 A type of kidney bean, common in France.
WordNet
n. a French bean variety with light-colored seeds; usually dried [syn: haricot]
a small fipple flute with four finger holes and two thumb holes [syn: treble recorder, shepherd's pipe]
Wikipedia
A flageolet is a musical instrument.
Flageolet may also refer to:
- Flageolet (organ stop), a pipe organ component
- The flageolet bean, a type of Common bean
- A type of stringed instrument harmonic
The flageolet is a woodwind instrument and a member of the fipple flute family. Its invention is ascribed to the 16th century Sieur Juvigny in 1581. There are two basic forms of the instrument: the French, having four finger holes on the front and two thumb holes on the back; and the English, having six finger holes on the front and sometimes a single thumb hole on the back. The latter was developed by English instrument maker William Bainbridge, resulting in the "improved English flageolet" in 1803. There are also double and triple flageolets, having two or three bodies that allowed for a drone and countermelody. Flageolets were made until the 19th century when they were succeeded by the cheaper and more easily made tin whistle.
Flageolets have varied greatly during the last 400 years. The first flageolets were called "French flageolets", and have four tone-holes on the front and two on the back. This instrument was played by Hector Berlioz, Frédéric Chalon, Samuel Pepys, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Henry Purcell and George Frideric Handel both wrote pieces for it. An early collection of manuscript 'Lessons for the Flajolet', dating from about 1676, is preserved in the British Library.
Small versions of this instrument, called bird flageolets were also made and were used for teaching birds to sing. These tiny flageolets have, like the French flageolet, four finger holes on the front and two thumb holes on the back.
The number of keys on French flageolets range from none to seven, the exception being the Boehm system French flageolet made by Buffet Crampon which had thirteen keys. The arrangement of the tone holes on the flageolet yields a scale different from that on the whistle or recorder. Whereas the whistle's basic scale is D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-d; the flageolet's basic scale is D-E-F-G-A-C-d. Cross-fingerings and keys are required to fill in the gaps.
In the late 18th and early 19th century certain English instrument makers started to make flageolets with six finger-holes on the front. These instruments are called "English flageolets" and were eventually produced in metal as tin whistles. The keys range between none and six. Some were produced with changeable top joints which allowed the flageolet to be played as a flute or fife.
An English maker, William Bainbridge, in around 1810 patented a double flageolet which consisted of two English flageolets joined together so that the player could harmonise the tunes that he played. He also produced a triple flageolet which added a third, drone pipe which was fingered in a similar way to an ocarina.
The flageolet was eventually entirely replaced by the tin whistle and is rarely played today. However, it is a very easy instrument to play and the tone is soft and gentle. It has a range of about two octaves.
The flageolet is composed of several parts: the ivory beak serves as the instrument's mouthpiece; the windway is a gradually expanding part that leads to the barrel. The barrel contains the fipple and together they form the wind channel which focusses the stream of air across the window and onto the labium (lip) where the stream is split, giving rise to a musical sound. Finally, there is the body (or bodies, in a double or triple flageolet) which contains the finger holes and keys. The beak, windway and barrel do not contribute to sound production and the instrument can be played if these parts are missing.
The Flageolet is an organ stop belonging to the flute group of flue pipes. It is usually found in 2-feet pitch, and more rarely 1-feet pitch. The tone is generally soft in character.
Category:Organ stops Category:Flute type Organ stops
Usage examples of "flageolet".
The swell organ has bourdon, open diapason, salicional, aeoline, stopped diapason, gemshorn, flute harmonique, flageolet, cornet--3 ranks, 183,--cornopean, oboe, vox humana--61 pipes each.
There were vendors who shouted the wares they displayed in trays hung from their necks, externs who gabbled in rude tongues, and beggars who showed their sores, feigned to play flageolets and ophicleides, and pinched their children to make them weep.
Then the gathering of the vraic was a fete, and the lads and lasses footed it on the green or on the hard sand, to the chance flageolets of sportive seamen home from the war.
As soon as the sauce is cooked, add the madeira, the pieces of game, and the peas or flageolets.
From their corner came a medley of mellow sounds, the subdued chirps of the violins, the dull bourdon of the bass viol, the liquid gurgling of the flageolet and the deep-toned snarl of the big horn, with now and then a rasping stridulating of the snare drum.
Little Billee remembered there was such a person as Svengali in the world, and recalled his little flexible flageolet!
I have to record all the transfers of food from my stores to our outposts: the smoked salmon I shipped off to Washington, the flageolets I sent to Miami, the rosette and jambon de Paris I sent to Tokyo.
Wong Feng sat, sipping his kirsch, listening with absent ears to the wailings of a flageolet and drums, watching with idle, nonseeing eyes as the belly-dancers undulated teasingly before him.
There were vendors who shouted the wares they displayed in trays hung from their necks, externs who gabbled in rude tongues, and beggars who showed their sores, feigned to play flageolets and ophicleides, and pinched their children to make them weep.