The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening. According to the instrument classification of Hornbostel-Sachs, flutes are categorized as edge-blown aerophones.

A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, a flutist, or less commonly a fluter.

Aside from the voice, flutes are the earliest known musical instruments. A number of flutes dating to about 43,000 to 35,000 years ago have been found in the Swabian Alb region of Germany. These flutes demonstrate that a developed musical tradition existed from the earliest period of modern human presence in Europe.

The word flute first entered the English language during the Middle English period, as floute,, or else flowte, flo(y)te, possibly from Old French flaute and from Old Provençal flaüt,or else from Old French fleüte, flaüte, flahute via Middle High German floite or Danish fluit. Attempts to trace the word back to a Latin root have been pronounced "phonologically impossible" or "inadmissable". The first known use of the word flute was in the 14th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this was in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Hous of Fame, ca. 1384.

Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia (born 1 July 1938) is an Indian classical instrumentalist. He is a player of the bansuri, the Indian bamboo flute.

Hariprasad Chaurasia was born in Allahabad in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. His father was a wrestler. His mother died when he was 6. He had to learn music without his father's knowledge, for his father wanted him to become a wrestler. He did go to the Akhada and train with his father for some time, although he also started learning music, and practising at his friend's house. He often credits his wrestling training for giving him the immense stamina and lung power that are the hallmarks of his flute playing, stating that,

Hariprasad Chaurasia started learning vocal music from his neighbor, Pandit Rajaram at the age of 15. Later, he switched to playing the flute under the tutelage of Pandit Bholanath Prasanna of Varanasi for eight years. He joined the All India Radio, Cuttack, Orissa in 1957 and worked as a composer and performer Much later, while working for All India Radio he received guidance from the reclusive Annapurna Devi, daughter of Baba Allaudin Khan.

Emmanuel Pahud (b. January 27, 1970) is a Swiss flute player.

He was born in Geneva, Switzerland. His father is of French and Swiss background and his mother is French. The Berlin-based flutist is most known for his baroque and classical flute repertory.

Pahud was born into a non-musical family. As a young boy living in Italy, the sounds of the flute captivated Pahud. From the age of four to the age of 22, he was tutored and mentored by flutists such as François Binet, Carlos Bruneel and Aurèle Nicolet. Classically trained at the Conservatoire de Paris, he leapt into the international orchestral and solo music scene when he joined the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1992.

His versatility in music styles over the years has “signalled the arrival of a new master flautist” (The Guardian). He plays in diverse music genres, whether baroque, jazz, contemporary, classical, orchestral, or chamber music.

Travelling has been a big part of Emmanuel Pahud's life from birth. His father worked for a U.S. company, and the family moved repeatedly during his childhood. However, this would only shape Pahud's international outlook for his future. Only six weeks after Pahud was born, his parents moved to Baghdad for one year. They moved again when he was 1 to Paris, where Emmanuel's younger brother was born. In 1972, they then moved to Madrid for two years, and in 1974, finally settled in Rome for four years. In their apartment building in Rome, lived the Swiss-French Binet family whose four children played musical instruments. The father (François) was a flautist who studied in Zurich and Paris but stopped performing in later years. At the age of four, Pahud first heard the flute. As the eldest son Philippe played the Flute Concerto No. 1 (Mozart) K.313 in G Major, it set the course to a remarkable chapter of Pahud's life. He recalls: