Ressikan flute

"When I awoke, all that was left of my life there... was the flute I'd taught myself to play."

- Jean-Luc Picard reminisces about his life experience as a Ressikan. (TNG: "Lessons")

A Ressikan flute is a small flute made of a tin-like material, native to the village of Ressik on the extinct planet of Kataan.

Kamin's flute

Picard's Ressikan flute.

In 2368, Captain Jean-Luc Picard acquired a Ressikan flute through an experience he had related to a probe launched from the dead planet. Picard knew how to play the flute, as all the memories of a man named Kamin had been planted in his memory through the probe. Among the memories was the ability to play the flute. (TNG: "The Inner Light")

Picard considers the flute to be one of his most prized possessions. It represents, to him, an entire lifetime he lived in only 25 minutes, a life completely different from that aboard the Enterprise, with a wife, children and even a grandson. As of 2379, Picard kept the flute on his desk in his ready room aboard the USS Enterprise-E. (TNG: "Lessons"; Star Trek Nemesis)

The Picard Mozart trio was a musical composition Picard wrote for the Ressikan flute. (TNG: "A Fistful of Datas")

Media

• Picard playing the Ressikan Flute ^file info

Background

• The music of the Ressikan flute was not played by Patrick Stewart, but by Brice Martin. [1]
• The tune played by Picard in "The Inner Light" was an excerpt from "Scottish Fantasy", originally composed by Max Bruch and re-composed by Jay Chattaway.
• The sound of the flute is closer to a tin whistle, but can be matched fairly well with the higher notes on the piccolo.
• The prop was sold as Lot #537 at the 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection auction. The buyer paid $48,000 for the lot, after winning it with a bid of $40,000. Patrick Stewart commented in an interview after with laughter "It doesn't play; it's not a real flute." The catalogue estimate for the lot was 800 to 1200 dollars. [2]
• In "Big Man on Hippocampus", a January 2010 episode of Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy, Peter Griffin, as a contestant on Family Feud, is asked to name something he would like as a gift, and chooses "the flute that Captain Picard played, first in his imagination and then in real life, in the episode "The Inner Light" from Star Trek: The Next Generation." "Picard's flute" is, in fact, one of the answers, given by one person in the survey - Peter himself.