Piccolo
Petite Flûte (French)
Flautin or Flautino (Spanish)
Kleine Flöte or Pickelflöte (German)
Flauto Piccolo or Ottavino (Italian)
Piccolo (English)

"Without music life would be a mistake."
Friedrich Nietsche

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life.  Music and cats."
Albert Schweitzer

"Music gives a soul to the universe"
Plato

"The flute is not an instrument which has a good moral effect.  It is too exciting."
Aristotle

"When in doubt, trill~~~~~~."
Anonymous

"The one who takes care in the practicing of every note, will be at the end a good player."
Theobald Boehm

"A flutist who is moved to tears by his own performance will soon make the listeners laugh because of the sounds he produces."
Franz Grillparzer, "Notebooks and Diaries"

"A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute, strength of a host, as well as of a hero."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Swedenborg or The Mystic"

"Their correspondence was something like a duet between a piccolo and a tuba."
Davis Herbert Donald, "Look Homeward"
(On love letters of Thomas Wolfe and Aline Bernstein)

"And all the people went up after him, and the people were playing on flutes and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth shook at their noise."
The Bible - 1st Kings 1:40

…It depends on the size of their flute ensemble.

…None. Only piccoloists are allowed to go that high up a ladder.
(submitted by Kim)

How do you get two piccolos to play in tune?

…Fire one of them.

…Give them 1000 bars of rests and hope they lose count.

…Only have them play together on "tacet" movements.

…Have one of them play way off stage (outside the building).

…Take the corks out of their head joints.

…Switch one of them to an "air piccolo" part.
(submitted by Kim)

That same young flutist in Butte,
Was playing on her new golden flute.
When the conductor said, "Please play out some",
She thought to herself, "How about platinum!"
So she went out and bought yet another flute.

The poor young flutist in Butte,
Could hardly lift her heavy platinum flute.
Although easily on it she could blow,
She thought, "This thing has got to go!"
So she went out and bought--a PICCOLO.
Copyright 1999 by Kim Teal

"I want to know a butcher paints,
A baker rhymes for his pursuit,
Candlestick-maker much acquaints
His soul with song, or haply mute,
Blows out his brains upon the flute."
Robert Browning, "Song"

"He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practiced on a fife;
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
"At length I realize, he said,
The bitterness of Life!"
Lewis Carroll, "Silvia and Bruno"

"The fairest, brightest, hues of ether fade;
The sweetest notes must terminate and die;
O Friend! thy flute has breathed a harmony
Softly resounded through this rocky glade..."
William Wordsworth,
"The Fairest, Brightest, Hues of Ether Fade"

"The gauger walked with willing foot,
And aye the gauger played the flute,
And what should Master Gauger play
But Over the hills and far away?
When e'er I buckle on my pack
And foot it gaily in the track,
O pleasant gauger, long since dead,
I hear you fluting on ahead..."
Robert Louis, "A Song Of The Road"

"Under the night moon,
playing the flute quite badly--
my neighbor--listen.
Koyo, "Untitled haiku"

"Sound the Flute!
Now it's mute.
Birds delight
Day and Night."
William Blake, "Songs of Innocence"

"We, sighing said, "Our Pan is dead;
His pipe hangs mute beside the river;
Around it wistful sunbeams quiver,
But Music's airy voice is fled.
Spring mourns as for untimely frost;
The bluebird chants a requiem;
The willow-blossom waits for him;
The Genius of the wood is lost."

Then from the flute, untouched by hands,
There came a low, harmonious breath:
"For such as he there is no death;
His life the eternal life commands;
Above man's aims his nature rose:
The wisdom of a just content
Made one small spot a continent,
And turned to poetry Life's prose."

"To him no vain regrets belong,
Whose soul, that finer instrument,
Gave to the world no poor lament,
But wood-notes ever sweet and strong.
O lonely friend! he still will be
A potent presence, though unseen,--
Steadfast, sagacious, and serene;
Seek not for him,--he is with thee."
Louisa May Alcott, "Thoreau's Flute"

"The nightingale has a lyre of gold,
The lark's is a clarion call,
And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute,
But I love him best of all.

For his song is all of the joy of life,
And we in the mad, spring weather,
We two have listened till he sang
Our hearts and lips together."
William Ernest Henley, "The Blackbird"

"It is sweet to dance to violins
When love and life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air!"
Oscar Wilde, "The Ballade of Reading Gaol"

"Pan's Syrinx was a girl indeed,
Though now she's turned into a reed;
From that dear reed Pan's pipe does come;
A pipe that stikes Apollo dumb;
Nor flute, nor lute, nor gittern can
So chant it as the pipe of Pan."
John Lyly, "Midas..."

"THE SONG-BIRDS? are they flown away?
The song-birds of the summer-time,
That sang their souls into the day,
And set the laughing days to rhyme? --
No catbird scatters through the hush
The sparkling crystals of its song;
Within the woods no hermit-thrush
Trails an enchanted flute along,
A sweet assertion of the hush."
Madison Cawein, "Flight"

"The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water, the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them, the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. Foe her own person,
It beggar'd all description."
William Shakespeare, "Antony and Cleopatra"

"Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner and all quality.
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!"
William Shakespeare, "Othello"

"No more the wily note is heard
from his full flute, the riving air
that tames the snake,
Decoys the bird, worries the
she-wolf from her lair."
T. G. Hake (1809)

"The soft complaining flute
In dying note discovers
The woes of helpless lovers."
John Dryden, "Song for St. Cecilia's Day"

"Good-night to the Season! -- the dances,
The fillings of hot little rooms,
The glancings of rapturous glances,
The fancyings of fancy costumes,
The pleasures which Fashion makes duties,
The praisings of fiddles and flutes,
The luxury of looking at beauties,
The tedium of talking to mutes."
Winthrop W. Praed, "Goodnight To The Season!"

"A federal band, which, eve and morn,
Played measures brave and nimble,
Had just struck up, with flute and horn
And lively crash of cymbal."
John Randolph Thompson, "Music In Camp"

"Now it is noon, in the hush prevailing
Pipes, harps, and horns into flute-notes fall;
The sea, conceding my star's true leading,
In tongues sublime at the end of all
Gives resonant utterance far and near:
'Cast away fear;
Be of good cheer;
He is here,
Is here!"
Arthur Edward Waite, "At the End of Things"

"So the old flute was doomed and its fate was pathetic,
'Twas fastened and burned at the stake as a heretic,
While the flames roared around it they heard a strange noise --
'Twas the old flute still whistling "The Protestant Boys'.
Unknown, "The Old Orange Flute" (Irish Folk Song)

"All night have the roses heard
The flute, violin, bassoon;
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd
To the dancers dancing in tune;
Till a silence fell with waking bird,
And a hush with setting moon."
Alfred Tennyson, "Maud"