No. A flute has no reed and never has had one. What it has instead is the jet of air leaving your lips, which flips in and out of the hole in the headjoint hundreds of times a second and does exactly the job a clarinet reed does. The music acoustics group at the University of New South Wales puts it plainly: at the blowing end of a woodwind there is something that controls the airflow, and it is “an air jet for the flute family and cane reeds for other woodwinds.”
Which matters more than it sounds, because that one difference decides what the instrument costs to keep playing. A clarinet consumes about $2.35 of cane every time a reed dies. An oboe consumes $17.50. A flute consumes nothing at all, which is one of the reasons a flute costs what it costs to own rather than to buy.
Yamaha Flute Maintenance Kit — the entire consumables list, about $21
A flute player never buys a reed. What they do go through is cleaning gauze, pad paper and tone-hole cleaners, and this is the manufacturer’s own box of all three. It lasts most of a school year and it is the closest thing a flute has to a box of reeds.
What a reed actually does
A reed is not a sound source. It is a valve.
You blow steady air into a clarinet — steady pressure, no wobble in it, about 3 kPa, which would hold a column of water 30 centimeters up a tube. Steady air makes no sound. Something has to chop it into pulses, and on a clarinet that is the strip of cane clamped to the mouthpiece: as the pressure inside the instrument rises, the reed is pushed shut and the flow stops; as the pressure falls, the reed springs open and lets a slug of air through. The acoustics group at UNSW describes it as “an oscillating valve (technically, a control oscillator)”, and that is the whole of what a reed is for.
Crucially, the reed does not choose the speed. The air column in the tube does, and the reed is dragged along at whatever frequency the tube resonates at. Change the fingering, and the same reed obediently opens and closes at the new rate. When a reed does insist on vibrating at its own natural frequency instead, you get the squeak every beginning clarinetist knows.
Cane reeds are cut from Arundo donax, giant cane, and single-reed instruments use one blade against the flat table of a mouthpiece. Double-reed instruments — oboe, English horn, bassoon, contrabassoon — use two blades bound together and beating against each other, with no mouthpiece at all. You can build a crude one in ten seconds by flattening the end of a drinking straw and cutting a V into it; UNSW recommends the experiment and notes that the result “probably resembles that of a beginning oboist.”
What the flute has instead
Start with the vocabulary, because most pages about this get it wrong. A flute has no mouthpiece. It has a headjoint, and on the headjoint is a lip plate with an oval embouchure hole cut through it. You rest your lower lip across roughly the bottom third of that hole and blow across it toward the far edge.
What happens next is the reed’s job being done by moving air. The jet crosses the hole and strikes the sharp far edge. The air column in the tube is already sloshing, and it deflects the jet — down into the hole on one half of the cycle, up and out of it on the other. When the jet is going in, it pumps energy into the vibration; when it is going out, it does not. Time it right and the note sustains itself. Yamaha describes the same loop from the instrument’s side: the sound waves reach the open end, bounce back, and “force the air in the vicinity of the embouchure hole back out through the embouchure hole,” after which the pressure falls and air is sucked back in.
The jet leaves the lips at somewhere between 20 and 60 meters per second, and the wave that ripples along it travels at about half that. To play higher, the trip has to be quicker, so a flutist blows harder and pushes the lips forward to shorten the distance to the edge. That adjustment is invisible, it is learned entirely by feel, and it is the single reason the flute is harder to get a first note out of than a clarinet. A clarinet’s reed is already the right shape. A flutist has to build the reed out of their own face, every time they pick the instrument up.
Two more corrections to the usual description while we are here. A flute is not a plain cylinder: the body is, but the headjoint tapers, narrowing toward the closed end, and Yamaha cuts three different taper profiles because each one changes how much resistance the player feels. And the headjoint is not open at the top — a cork holds a metal reflective plate exactly 17 mm from the center of the embouchure hole, a distance Theobald Boehm arrived at by trial and error in the nineteenth century and nobody has improved on since. Between the taper and that 17 mm the octaves land in tune, which on a perfectly cylindrical tube they would not.
So is a recorder a flute?
Yes, and for a precise reason. A recorder makes its sound the same way a flute does — an air jet striking a sharp edge — and the only difference is who aims the jet. On a flute your lips shape and point it. On a recorder a molded channel called a windway does it for you, and the edge is built into the instrument a centimeter beyond.
Yamaha says it in one line: “The principle is the same as that for the recorder. However, on the flute the lips fix the outlet for the breath, while on the recorder the windway fixes the outlet for the breath.” UNSW puts the recorder in the flute family on exactly the same grounds, and adds the consequence — fixing the jet in plastic “makes the recorder a relatively easy instrument for beginners.”
That is why a five-year-old gets a note out of a plastic recorder in four seconds and a note out of a flute in about four days. It is also why every reedless pipe belongs to the same half of the woodwind family: piccolo, recorder, tin whistle, fife, Irish flute and pan pipes are all flutes, whatever they are made of and whichever end you blow.
Which woodwinds have reeds, and how many
| Instrument | What starts the sound | Consumable | Cost per reed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flute, piccolo | Air jet across an embouchure hole | None | — |
| Recorder, tin whistle, fife | Air jet, aimed by a windway | None | — |
| Clarinet | Single cane reed on a mouthpiece | Boxes of ten | About $2.35 |
| Saxophone | Single cane reed on a mouthpiece | Boxes of ten | About $2.90 (alto) |
| Oboe | Two cane blades beating together | Sold singly | About $17.50 |
| English horn | Two cane blades, on a curved metal crook | Sold singly | About $25 |
| Bassoon | Two cane blades, larger | Sold singly | About $24 |
| Bagpipe chanter | Cane or plastic reed inside the chanter | Sold singly | Varies widely |
| Harmonica, accordion | Metal free reeds, fixed in the instrument | None in normal use | — |
The last row is worth a sentence, because it is where the word “reed” splits in two. A clarinet reed beats — it slams shut against the mouthpiece every cycle. A harmonica or accordion reed is a metal tongue that swings freely through a slot and never closes anything. Both are called reeds; only one is a thing you buy in boxes.
Reeds are not the only thing that divides the woodwinds
Here is the part almost nobody puts in front of a beginner, and it explains an oddity you will hit in the first year of playing.
A flute is open at both ends. A reed instrument is closed at the mouth end, because the reed seals it. That would seem to be the whole story — except that it only holds for a cylindrical tube. The clarinet is a closed cylinder, so it behaves like one: it plays nearly an octave lower than a flute of the same length, it produces only the odd harmonics, and it overblows a twelfth rather than an octave. That is why a clarinetist has to climb nineteen semitones before the fingerings repeat, and why the instrument needs the pile of little-finger keys it has.
The oboe, saxophone and bassoon all have reeds too, and none of that applies to them, because their bores are cones rather than cylinders. A closed cone has almost exactly the resonances of an open cylinder. So an oboe is about the same length as a flute, starts on about the same note, plays the full harmonic series and overblows at the octave — it is a reed instrument that behaves like a flute.
So the two questions are separate. Reed or no reed decides how the sound gets started and what you spend. Cylinder or cone decides the register, the length and half the fingering. The clarinet is the only common woodwind that sits on the awkward corner of both.
What each instrument costs to keep playing
Four products, four instruments, and every price below is the manufacturer’s own list price for the item.
Yamaha Flute Maintenance Kit
- Tone hole cleaners
- Pad cleaning paper
- Cleaning gauze
- Plain polishing cloth and silver polishing cloth
- Care and maintenance manual
- Fits any brand of flute
- ~$21
This is what a flute consumes instead of reeds, and it is a short list. The gauze wraps around the cleaning rod to dry the bore after playing. The pad paper goes between a damp pad and its tone hole to draw the moisture out. The tone-hole cleaners get under the keys once a week. One kit covers a school year’s worth of ordinary care, and it is bought once in that time rather than every few weeks.
Note what is not in the box: a cleaning rod. Every flute is sold with one, and it is worth keeping hold of, because the line scored near its tip is a measuring gauge. Push the rod into the headjoint and the line should sit dead center in the embouchure hole; if it has drifted, the cork behind the reflective plate has moved and the instrument will not play in tune across the octaves. That is the flute’s one hidden adjustment, and the rod is the only tool that reveals it.
- The maker’s own kit, so nothing in it is the wrong grade for a silver-plated instrument
- Covers daily, weekly and monthly care in one purchase
- Includes a silver cloth, which the tarnish on a plated flute eventually needs
- No cleaning rod, so a secondhand flute that arrived without one still needs it
- Priced like a box of reeds, which makes a single purchase feel steep until you notice it is the only one
Vandoren JUNO B♭ Clarinet Reeds, Strength 2½, Box of Ten
- Single reed, B♭ soprano clarinet
- Strength 2½ — the usual first strength
- Box of ten, code JCR0125
- Cut in Vandoren’s own factory in France
- ~$23.50, so about $2.35 a reed
Vandoren designed the JUNO specifically for players at the very start, and says so: it is meant to give musicians “starting to play the clarinet or saxophone the opportunity to have a beautiful sound from the moment they make their first sounds.” It is cut from the same cane, in the same factory, as their professional lines. For a beginner it is the reed that makes the instrument sound like an instrument fastest.
Check the box says 2½. Strengths run from 1½ to 3½ in this line, and 3 and above take an embouchure that has not been built yet — a reed that is too hard is indistinguishable, from the outside, from a child who cannot play.
- Designed for the first months rather than adapted down from a pro reed
- Ten in a box, so there is always a spare when one splits mid-week
- Costs less than the orange box most students are handed
- You will move to a different model within a year or two
- Strength is instrument- and mouthpiece-specific, so a teacher may want a different number
Vandoren JUNO Alto Saxophone Reeds, Strength 2½, Box of Ten
- Single reed, E♭ alto saxophone
- Strength 2½
- Box of ten, code JSR6125
- ~$29, so about $2.90 a reed
The saxophone uses exactly the same kind of reed as the clarinet, cut wider and thicker, and it is the same beginner line at a slightly higher price. A saxophone reed will not fit a clarinet and a clarinet reed will not fit a saxophone; nor will a tenor reed fit an alto. Whatever the case says on the outside is what the box has to say too.
Ten is the right quantity to buy for the same reason it is on the clarinet: a reed that splits the night before a concert is only a problem if it was the last one.
- Easy response, which is most of what a first-year tone problem actually is
- Same family as the clarinet reed, so a doubling student learns one system
- A jazz player will want a harder, differently cut reed before long
- Five and a half dollars a box more than the clarinet version for the same ten pieces
Jones JR101MS Oboe Reed, Medium Soft
- Double reed, oboe
- Medium soft — the student strength
- Sold as one reed
- ~$17.50 each
One reed, for seven times what a clarinetist pays for one, and this is the cheap end. Fox charges $16.25 for a Renard oboe reed and $19 for their Artist grade, so $17.50 is squarely the going rate rather than a markup. The reason is that a double reed is two shaped blades scraped by hand and bound to a metal tube, and no machine makes them.
The part that catches parents out is quantity. Jones itself says it is “very important to have three or more good reeds” in rotation, because an oboe reed dies suddenly and being mid-concert with your only one is not a position anyone wants. Three at a time is roughly fifty dollars sitting in the case, and it is why oboists eventually learn to make their own — not for the tone, for the arithmetic.
- Medium soft is the right resistance for a school player
- From a specialist double-reed maker rather than a general accessory brand
- Priced with the manufacturers rather than above them
- Handmade, so two reeds from the same box can play differently
- You need three of them, not one
How to tell a reed is finished
“A few weeks to a few months” is the usual answer and it is useless, because it is not a question about time. Cane is a plant. It absorbs moisture, swells, dries, warps and loses its spring, and how fast depends on how long the instrument is played and how the reed is treated between sessions.
The symptoms are specific enough to check. Jones lists them for double reeds and the same signs show up on a single reed: the cane discolors, the tip closes up, the reed starts to play sharp, it gets harder to blow rather than easier, the sides begin to slip apart, and eventually it cracks. Playing sharp is the one to learn, because it arrives before the reed is obviously dead and it is easy to blame on the player.
Care buys a surprising amount of life. Jones reckons that rinsing a reed in fresh water after playing, blowing the excess out and letting it dry in a ventilated case rather than in the packaging it came in gets up to four times the life out of it — which on an oboe reed is worth more per year than most accessories on this page.
The flute’s version of all this is short: swab the bore out after playing so the pads do not sit wet, and get the instrument to a technician when the pads stop sealing. There is no consumable in that sentence, which is the whole point of the page.
Common questions
If a flute has no reed, why is it a woodwind?
Because the family is defined by how the sound starts, not by what the tube is made of. Woodwinds set a column of air vibrating with a reed or an air jet; brass instruments do it with the player’s buzzing lips. A concert flute is metal and a saxophone is brass, and both are woodwinds. There is more on the whole family in our guide to woodwind instruments.
Do any flutes have reeds?
No. If it has a reed it is not a flute — that is the definition, not a coincidence. Instruments sometimes called flutes that do have reeds are named loosely: a “reed flute” in a folk context is usually a single-reed pipe of the clarinet type, and the melodica sold as a school instrument is a free-reed instrument with a keyboard on it.
Is a flute or a clarinet easier to start on?
The clarinet, in the first few weeks, because the reed makes the note for you and a flute makes you build the equivalent out of your lips. After that the clarinet asks for more: twelve scale steps between registers, more keys, and a reed to manage. The full comparison goes into which suits which player.
Why do oboists and bassoonists make their own reeds?
Money and fit, in that order. At $17.50 a reed with three in rotation the cane bill outruns the tools within a couple of years, and a hand-scraped reed can be matched to an individual player’s embouchure and the resistance they like. It is a real craft with knives, mandrels and shapers, and it is why the oboe asks more of a student than any other woodwind in a school band.
Are synthetic reeds worth it?
They change the arithmetic more than the sound. A synthetic B♭ clarinet reed runs about $25 — one reed for the price of ten cane ones — and lasts months rather than weeks, so on a clarinet it roughly breaks even while removing the wet-reed routine. On an oboe the same maker charges around $130 for one, against $17.50 for cane, and there the calculation is much less obvious. Our guide to reed cuts covers what the differences between models actually do.
If you are choosing between these instruments rather than maintaining one you already own, the flute against the clarinet and the flute against the recorder are the two comparisons that decide most of it.