The hyperbass flute (sometimes spelled hyper-bass flute) is the largest and lowest instrument in the flute family. It is pitched in C, four octaves below the concert flute (and three octaves below the bass flute, two octaves below the contrabass flute, and one octave below the double contrabass flute). Its tubing is over 8 meters in length and its lowest note is the C one octave below the lowest C on the piano (16 Hz), below what is generally considered the range of human hearing.

The inventor and primary performer of this unique instrument is the Italian flautist Roberto Fabbriciani (b. Arezzo, 1949), who calls it flauto iperbasso in Italian. The only known example of the instrument is a prototype built for Fabbriciani by Francesco Romei, a Florentine craftsman. Fabbriciani has used it to record a composition, Con Fuoco (for hyperbass flute and 8-track magnetic tape) by the Roman composer Nicola Sani, at the electronic studio of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in Cologne, Germany, while the first composition with the hyperbass flute is Persistenza della memoria by Alessandro Grego, published in 2001 by ARTS label on the CD Flute XX vol.2. In 2006 Fabbriciani released an entire CD of music for hyperbass flute and tape, entitled Glaciers in Extinction, on the Col Legno label.

The hyperbass flute is made of PVC and wood. There appear to be wide tone holes, made from standard tee fittings, but without keys; these are covered with the palms of the hands.

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External links

• Discussion of hyperbass flute