Fifes

Irish Flute
1

I’m cross posting this to the woodenflute list, and to the whistle board, so please ignor if the redundancy disturbs you.

Sorry for the slightly off-topic post, but
there’s been a new development in the fife world
that I know will interest some of our members.

The Cooperman Fife and Drum Company has reached
agreements with Wilson Woods and John McDonagh to
take over production of McDonagh fifes. They
plan to begin production this spring of six and
ten hole versions, and have them available by
summer. An agreement was also reached to
manufacture an eleven hole version, but Cooperman
doesn’t plan to offer it this first year.

Previously, Cooperman sold McDonagh fifes
manufactured by Wilson Woods as well as their own
two-piece concert model fife. Production of tht
fife will be discontinued. Cooperman will
continue to offer their one-piece concert model
fife, which (by the way) they developed with the
help of our own Dave Migoya.

I expect to have one of the early fifes off of
Cooperman’s production line, and I’ll let you all
know what I think when it arrives.

Also, I recently acquired a pink ivory fife made
by a Connecticut man named Ron Peeler. It’s a
six-hole, one-piece, cylindrical bore fife in B
flat, typical of the American tradition except
for the wild color. It’s a lovely, lovely fife,
impeccably tooled, with a very nice tone, and it
is absolutely the easiest blowing fife I’ve ever
played!

Linkage:

Cooperman
http://www.cooperman.com/

Peeler
http://www.peelerfife.com/

Images of Pink Ivory Fifes
http://www.fifedrum.org/album/image-cache/Pink%20Fifes/Pink%20Ivory%20Fife%20black%20back%20ground_disp512.jpg

Mine is the one in the middle.

I have no commercial connections with any of the
folks discussed above, other than continuing to
give them my money.

Best Regards,

Jim

2

Hi Jim,

Your fife looks nice! :slight_smile:

If you want to play some traditional music of Celtic origin (Irish, Scottish, Bretton) I can highly recommend you a one-keyed D flute (which is chromatic with cross-fingerings). It would be a great pitty to ignore these sorts of music. Fife music has a great tradition in Scottland and Bretagne. I’m curious why most Scottish tunes are in Bb. Perhaps that’s an older pitch from the past of Celtic music. (Wow! my fantasy is very vivid!)

Anyway I suggest you to obtain a traditional style fife (they are not so expensive): from Ralph Sweet, Skip Healy or Hammy Hammilton. Consider that! Healy’s fifes are quite expensives, but he makes ten-holes chromatic ones. Hammy Hammilton’s fifes are in moderate pricing, and with one key they are fully chromatic. And sounds great! Sweet has great fifes also, though he doesn’t make keyed fifes. (Healy does, but their price are beyond our solar system – 2200 USD for a four-keyed piccolo flute!!!) :boggle:

Bennet

3

Thanks. I have fifes by Healy, Sweet, Forsell, Ferrary, Peeler, Seaman, Trout, Wilson, Cloos, Cooperman and Model F. I’m on Hammy’s list. In the interest of my marriage, don’t suggest any others.

Edited to say that my Hamilton will be a one-key. All my others are keyless, but the Trout is a 10-hole and the Seaman is an 11-hole.