The flute's range is wide, but its volume changes a great deal from bottom to top. The lowest fifth is soft and breathy, and the top octave is loud and bright.
Flute registers
| Register | Range | How it sounds |
|---|---|---|
| Low | C4 to G4 | Breathy, dark and quiet. Lovely exposed, and covered by almost any accompaniment. |
| Middle | G4 to G5 | The flexible, singing register where most lines sit. |
| High | G5 to A6 | Clear and bright, carrying easily over strings. |
| Top | Above A6 | Brilliant and loud, hard to play softly. C7 is the classic top, D7 is common in modern scores. |
Writing for the flute
- A flute line below G4 needs light accompaniment to be heard.
- Flutes with a B foot add B3 at the bottom. Do not assume every player has one.
- Fast passage work and flutter-tonguing come easily. Long, soft, high notes are harder than they look.
The flute in sample libraries
Libraries record each note at each dynamic layer, so a sampled low flute can be as loud as a high one. That is one of the main reasons sampled woodwinds disappear or dominate in a mix that would not behave that way live.
The full range is every note a professional can produce. The practical range is narrower on purpose, leaving out the notes only strong players produce reliably. The figures here are cross-checked between orchestration references, and where they disagree the practical range takes the more conservative one.
Other woodwinds ranges
- Piccolo range: D5 to C8
- Oboe range: B♭3 to G6
- Clarinet range: D3 to B♭6
- Bassoon range: B♭1 to E5
See every instrument on one chart, or check a whole MIDI file against these ranges, in the instrument range chart.