Could someone please explain to me the difference between a flute, a picollo and a fife.
Thanks
A flute is pitched like a low whistle. Most common beeing low D but there is also low Bb, Eb and sometimes F. Picollos and Fifes are high pitched, like TinWhistles. I’m not totally sure about the difference between Picollo and Fife but I think a Fife is usually in the key of high Bb and Picollo in high D. So a Fife is lower than a Picollo.
I asked the same question about a year ago when I started playing. I got replies from a few of the more knowlegable fife and flute players here and basically they all said the same thing. It’s a mater of semantics between the fife and piccolo. Piccolos seem to be for indoor concert use and are often keyed. Fifes are more often used outdoors and are less often keyed but they both are usually made in the same keys (Bb is most common). One of the people who responded was from Europe and he asserted that the term fife was almost never used and piccolo was the prefered term there regardless of use or keys (if I’m remembering correctly, I may have it reversed) Flutes on the other hand are usually an octive lower and come in all kinds of keys D, C, and Eb are most common but you can also get them in F, G, and just about anything else but they are all lower octives than the fife or piccolo. Fife and piccolo are in the tin whistle range just loud! That’s why fifes were used to signal across distances in the military. They can be heard for a mile or so on a clear day!
Hope this helps, I think I got everything correct that I was told.
-Jim
Thanks:)
Fifes and piccolos for kindling.
Flutes for longer burn.
Fifes , being played in Northern Ireland in Fife Bands are probably a major cause of the discord there !
Thouse freekin Fife and drum bands. I heard of one called The Christian brothers. Your statement, andrew, was very dumb, but it might acctualy be at least a bit true. 
http://www.sweetheartflute.com shows some different flutes, fifes, and piccolos.
This is probably an over-generalization but there’s a grain of truth.
When looking up Miller Browne fifes on the web I found many websites of these bands whose philosophies were blatantly Loyalist and anti-Catholic with violent sentiments towards the Pope and Fenians and such.
So these bands aren’t the cause of discord but many do foster it.
Cheers,
Aaron
I find them discordant , Henke .I hope that my remarks aren’t as dumb as your spelling !
Hey, mate. That was below the belt! OK, I AM SWEDISH!
So that’s your excuse .Don’t worry .nobody’s perfect .I had hoped that it was the Islay whisky talking .
