When it comes to instrumental repertoire ownership no other family seems as prone to controversy in historical matters as does the flute...

The small transverse flute that extends its existence well before Beethoven's birth, deserves much more earnest curiosity from its players and better research from its historians...

It is the performers that claim the limelight; that is just what they are supposed to do. Yet behind the stage there are other, almost silent, but oh-so-essential contributors to the development of the piccolo...

With the spectacular Kamni-Savinja Alps as silent supervisors, the very first European Piccolo Symposium unfolded in the tiny hamlet of Jesersko, just south of the Austrian border in Slovenia.....

Although this was not a piccolo-designated year for the U.S.A.’s annual convention, there was still much to delight the piccolo aficionado.....

Is the piccolo a beginner’s instrument? Yes, indeed, but if we are truly honest about it, we must admit, that the limitations are not those of the instrument itself, but in our abilities to deal with the embedded social issues that surround life in the piccolo lane.....

What’s better than one piccolo? While for some flutists the cynical answer might be NONE, for real performers on the instrument, the notion of piccolos playing in ensemble with other piccolos is not the shriekish nightmare that some thoughtless and negative condemners would be only too quick to assert it is. Rather it is something of a novel delight.....

Many of the events of the 2010 spectacular (and seventh biennial) British Flute Society’s convention in Manchester have already been documented in Flute and The Flutist Quarterly. However, not written up in these follow-up reports were not one, but two early morning warm-up sessions dedicated exclusively to the piccolo....

Today the Db piccolo is considered little more than a forgotten relic from the band era of at least a century ago. In its heyday though, it and the clarinet were the most commonly found woodwind instruments in bands, when often in the brass and percussion dominant groups there were no flutes at all....

What is it about playing the piccolo that conjures up your pet peeves? Is it the condensation that sometimes collects under the thumb key at the most inopportune moments? Is it all the “little” jibes from other players that imply that our instrument is more like a toy than a legitimate member of an orchestra?....