Zen Flute
Concert flute, free in your browser
Press a key to play the flute online, one note at a time; slide between notes with a mouse or with your phone on its side, or type on your computer keyboard. Octave moves the thirteen keys to another register. Your first press turns the sound on; the keys play once it's ready.
How to play
A new key takes over from the note that is sounding, with no gap. With a mouse or pen, press and drag along the keys to slide from note to note. On a touch screen, slide a finger along the keys while the flute lies flat, as it does with your phone on its side.
The note ends when you lift the finger, pen or mouse button that started it, or release its computer key.
The thirteen keys cover one octave and its closing note. Octave down and Octave up move them between three registers, so the keys reach from C4 up to C7.
While the song plays, an Octave button lights when a sounding note lies beyond the keys and a register in that direction shows it.
Choose Song, then press Play, and Canon And Gigue In D Major, P.37 plays on the flute by itself, as Melody or as Classic VP with the piece's chords. You can press keys over it.
The song's notes can sound together. Your own presses sound one note at a time.
About the flute
How a flute sounds and how its family is pitched, with sources.
Air
A flute sounds when the player's air flows across an opening, which makes it an edge-blown wind instrument. The concert flute is held sideways, and the player blows across a hole near its top.
Keys
The modern concert flute's dimensions and key system are strongly influenced by the design Theobald Boehm patented in 1847: very large tone holes covered by keys, in a linked key system. The acoustical structure of its tube remains almost exactly as he designed it.
Octaves
A flute has no reed. Like a pipe open at both ends, it sounds an octave higher when it is overblown, the same step Octave up takes on these keys. Nothing here models breath.
Family
The piccolo plays an octave higher than the concert flute. The alto flute is pitched a perfect fourth below it, and the bass flute an octave below.
Your presses play one recorded Flute sound, one note at a time, on thirteen keys. Nothing here models breath, vibrato or fingerings.
Before you play
About playing here, and what the full app adds.
No. This virtual flute runs online in your browser, with nothing to install and no account.
Your first press turns the sound on and plays nothing itself. If the sound is still loading, the keys say so, and your next presses play once it's ready. If it can't load, a Try again button appears.
Your presses play as one instrument: a new key takes over from the note that is sounding, and releasing an older key changes nothing. Song is separate, and its notes can sound together.
They move the thirteen keys an octave lower or higher and end any note you are holding. The keys reach from C4 up to C7, so a button is off at either end.
Its sheet in the Zen Library is in the public domain. Song plays it on the flute, as its tune or as a Virtual Piano letter sheet with its chords. The song moves by whole octaves to suit the flute, and any note still out of its range is skipped.
Yes. Held upright, the phone shows the flute standing: tap a key, and a vertical swipe on the keys scrolls the page after sounding the key you touched, while a swipe beside the keys scrolls without a sound. Turn the phone on its side and the flute lies flat, so a finger can slide along the keys.
A library of songs. Play, on a computer with a mouse or trackpad, has 16 instruments and ways to learn a song, such as Magic Play and Practice; there, this page's link opens the song. On a touch device without a mouse, the link opens the touch piano on Flute.