Fife Book?

Subject: Fife Book?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 11:13 AM

I'm Mo's daughter Ruth so I'm just piggy backing her username to ask if you can help me.

I have a C fife which I would like to start playing but I find it hard to get the notes above the C above middle C.

Does anyone know of any beginer fife books on the market that would start out with easy tunes for me to learn?

Ruth

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 12:58 PM

Ruth -

I don't know of a fife book to be recommended, but for simple tunes any pennywhistle book should be pretty much interchangeable. The fingerings are almost identical (at least until you get to the 'fakes' for accidentals and such) so the tunes included in a p'whistle book should use the same notes (and should exclude tunes with notes that aren't easily playable.)

Both Mel Bay and Hal Leonard have published a lot of "simple songs" books, and one or both of them has published a "fife kit" (a crude fife with accompanying instructions) so a look at their web sites may find something, if no one comes up with specific recommendations.

For help with "getting the notes," you may find quite a lot of interesting stuff at flute sites. Your fife mouthpiece is likely to be a little "crude" compared to a classic flute, but all the principles are similar.

For getting the "register shifts" from high to low and back, two things are of critical significance.

You need to be very careful about "confident" placement of your fingers on the fingerholes. Any leakage can "trip" the tone to the wrong register. It can go up or down, unpredictably.

If you can whistle you'll be (perhaps) aware of how you change mouth volume to get the pitch you want. Even if you don't "whistle with proficiency" you can blow a breathy "pitched" wheeze, "wheezing at the pitch you want the instrument to play" (while maintaining a suitable embouchure to get the breath aimed at the hole) will help to get what you want the fife to do. If you "pucker up" as if you were going to blow the fife, but without the fife, when you waggle your tongue around in your mouth the "breath tone" should have a distinct - and changeable - pitch. While you play the fife - the pitch you "blow" should match the one you want from the fife.

You're unlikely to find the above suggestion in any "instruction book," since the great physicist Heinrich Helmholtz "proved" that it doesn't work. Helmholtz book is still the best one around on how musical instruments work, but in 1877 he didn't have sufficently sensitive devices to detect this effect, so he screwed up on this one point. Ignore the instruction that you will find, that you "just blow harder." "Wheeze in tune with the note you want."

John

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 01:06 PM

Interesting and helpful observations, John. Thanks.

I have a thing to add. Ruth, does the fife have a hole or two which are noticeably larger than the others? Often when I couldn't get a note right, it was because I wasn't getting those holes completely closed.

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: jeffp
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 01:13 PM

Cooperman
has several fine books on the fife and how to play it. They also make very fine fifes. I have played their rosewood and found it much easier to get a tone out of than my cheap maple fife that I got at Bennington Battle Monument.

jeffp

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 02:05 PM

The fife you have in your hands does make a lot of difference. An old metal fife (sacrilege, I know) from Mel Bay? many years ago was incredibly "easy" to play. Unfortunately, a child "disposed in unknown manner" of that one. A more recent wooden one is, for me, virtually unplayable. Of course, in addition to the difference in materials and design there's also been about 40 years of "physical degeneration of accessory facilities" and the onset of a few CRS symptoms.

John

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 06:13 PM

Thanks for all the replies, I'll look into the recomendations for easy tune books, you're right they don't need to be specific to the fife, just not going too high until I get the hang of it a bit more.

The fife I have is a plastic yamaha, no idea whether that will make it easy or difficult to play. I was given it in a christmas stocking many moons ago so I've just dusted it off and found I can just about get the lower notes.

The holes are different sizes, so I'll keep trying to get the harder notes baring that in mind, but for now I just need to get playing, the only tune I've rooted out so far from my recorder books is bah bah black sheep and I got tired of that VERY quickly!

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 09:13 PM

Try the Battle of Aughrim next.

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: CallyH
Date: 12 Aug 05 - 01:53 PM

Ah!

My little sister being enticed into mudcat and instrument playing!!

Good luck with it, I have never been able to even get a noise out of a fife!

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: CallyH
Date: 12 Aug 05 - 03:03 PM

a whistle might be easier ... you just blow into it and it makes a noise

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Aug 05 - 04:23 PM

Even a whistle presents the problem of getting the high notes when you want high ones and the low notes when you want them low. "Flipping" across the register gap is something that you have to learn, and it seems to be one of the least understood parts of the playing.

It's "the same old wheeze" with both instruments.

At least when you blow to the other register(s) - fife or whistle - you don't have to transpose like with a clarinet.

John

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: CallyH
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 11:14 AM

Any progress to report?

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: Ernest
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 12:04 PM

I saw one on the net a while ago at www-fife-n-drum.org/towpath/music/gif/company2/f1html.

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: Marc Bernier
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 11:26 AM

Go to fifeanddrum.com, they have several books and tutors. You say you have a plastic C fife. Are you sure? C fifes were quite common in the 19th and early 20th century, and are still played by modern combination corps, (fife, drum, and bugle). What is more common is the Bb fife. The reason I ask is that it makes a difference as to which register you play in. The Bb fife is traditionaly play in the upper 2 registers of the instrument, most collections of fife music are notated to accomidate this. The upper register in the C fife is less than pretty, tunes notated for C fife are usually transposed down to avoid going into that upper register. One collection comes to mind is called The Hart collection. Feel free to email me if I can be of any help.

Marc Bernier

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:12 PM

I have a 2 pg instruction sheet...offered it by PM...no answer.

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 02 Oct 05 - 06:53 AM

Thanks for all the replies, I've only just logged on to read the most recent.

I've actually started playing the recorder as that is easier but I will look up the links you've given me and maybe try to get some beginner tunes to get me started on the fife.

I think it is a C fife, but I'm relying on my mother's knowlegde so it may not be?!

Ruth

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: Tootler
Date: 02 Oct 05 - 08:44 AM

I know the instrument you mean. I have the Aulos equivalent and they are not that easy to play. The embouchure is quite critical, I found. They are in C pitched an octave above middle C, so at the same pitch as a descant recorder or C whistle.

I too play the recorder which as you say is much easier. The fingering is not too different, though you have to experiment a bit. IIRC, The thumb hole is not an octave hole, but is needed to play C#. I think if you get the knack of it, it would make an interesting alternative to a whistle.

I saw a tutor for the C fife last Saturday in Newcastle (upon Tyne), but I did not take that much notice as I was just idly browsing the traditional music books but they are available. Maybe try a search on Amazon or some such.

Subject: RE: Fife Book?
From: Tootler
Date: 02 Oct 05 - 02:18 PM

Found what I was looking for. The tutor I saw is called "The Fife Book" by Liz Goodwin.

The philosphy of the book can be found at http://flutewise.com/fw/fife.html and you can buy it from justflutes.com Cost £5.95GB. Select the search link and put the author's name in the search box.

Good luck with your playing