A while ago I bought a Bb fife. Now that I have no flute to play, temporarily, I have more reason to try to figure out this noisy beast. I think I figured it out.
Somehow I feel sorry for the poor fife not playing the music it was meant for, and playing only its bottom 2 octaves. I fear that third octave. I don’t have the courage to attempt one of those notes for fear of breaking windows or something.
Where are the fifers here? What do you do with your fife? We don’t have a fife & drum tradition out here in the west. It’s more of a mariachi band kind of place around here.
Diane - as Tom Madden once told me, “The fife is not a parlor instrument”. It is played in the second and third octave mainly and can be ear piercing but, good for embouchure development. The fingering for the fife and the D Flute are almost identical - but the sound not so. It is very difficult to play the fife in the lower octave but can be great for developing patience and emboucure. Play it in the second and third octave as it was primarily meant for.
There is a fife & drum, Ancient tradition in this area, in much of the northeast, although it may not be what it once was. However, it otherwise should go without saying that a fife never was made for the meek. Stand proud and tell the world, that is how a fife is played. And, the third register is designed to make sure that the world gets the message.
Aside from its military history, the fife is also a “poor man’s fiddle.” Fiddle tunes, dance tunes, just about anything you want to play is fine. You just have to get used to going “putt putt pooh” to get the thing to “speak” in a fife-like manner.
I usually carry one of Sweet’s little fifes in D in my book bag. Just the thing for a little impromptu practice.
There is an older Sweetheart fife in high D, with cylinder bore, but, in the same D, a new model has a cork lined head joint box, and looks just like a smaller version of the new Resonance models, complete with conical bore, as a little flute.
Actually, I have two, a two-piece beauty in rosewood which I purchased used about fifteen years ago, the other one of the the inexpensive “Renaissance” fifes, this one in walnut. As they both have cylindrical rather than conical bores, I guess they both fit even the most narrow definition of “fife.”
I have both an older, two piece, D fife, and one of the new, two piece, high D flutes. The new high D flute really is an improvement over the older model, frankly, at least in terms of general use.
If there could be any drawback, however, the new model uses cork in the head, and not thread on the tenon, and it seems that the new models should be taken apart during any storage, to allow the cork to retain its qualities, whereas the older, thread wrapped models seem to be more forgiving, in that regard.
To roj’s question, no, there are fifes in both lower and higher keys than Bb. Without stepping into the quagmire of “What’s a flute, What’s a fife?”, most folks around here seem to think that anything above the key of G is a fife, G and anything below is a flute. That said, I have an instrument in F from Sweetheart. Their catalogue calls it a fife, but the sound clip on their web site lists it as a flute.
On the flute, people worry about not being heard, the fife is quite the opposite. When not playing outside en mass, being able to tighten up the embouchure and play pp and ppp can be challenging but rewarding. I must admit that when I can pull out a soft high B on a good embouchure day that it changes what tunes I play.
One thing that is nice about the second and third octave is that cross fingering works better and you can play more tunes. For example, Funeral March #1 is impossible to play in the lower two octaves using cross fingering.
One interesting thing is that when I can’t hit the high notes, the first octave also suffers and the “Low D” becomes nonexistent.
I bought it so that I would have a sturdy, smaller flute to play with. I figured with the metal ends that it’s not going to break so I could take it camping. And since I hate my Bb whistle, which I bought to have something less shrill to play on than my D whistle, this was kind of like a happy medium between flute and Bb whistle: a nice-sounding Bb flute-like instrument. It was either this fife or a low whistle, but as much as I try, I just don’t like the way low whistles sound.
I never intended to learn the third octave and figured if this was a silly idea (to have a small, packable, indestructible flute for camping trips) that I could probably sell it.
I also didn’t realize at the time there was this whole fife and drum thing in the North East. Now it seems kind of anti-patriotic or something, but what the heck. It plays the Irish stuff just fine.
