I have recently taken up learning Wind Instruments, purely and simply for the fun of it, and though I started out with the Ocarina, and still have a place for it in my affections, then moved on to the Recorder, and likewise, have a place for it in my affections, I have added to this growing list of what some people term “Instruments of Torture”, the Fife.
The Fife, of which I have two, are the Aulos nine-hole and the Yamaha eight-hole. I would love to get my hands on the Fife-and-Drum six-hole Bb instrument, but I haven’t seen any in the local music shops, and I doubt there’s any call for them in New Zealand. And the Piccolo – in roughly the same register – is currently way outside my price bracket.
One of the things which I have re-learnt from my Soprano/Descant Recorder days, is that it is not that easy for a bare beginner to pick up the lower notes. I may have had a lot of luck on the Yamaha Fife, because I can play the lower notes without any trouble at the moment: I still have difficulty in playing them of the Aulos Fife.
At any rate, I have decided to put in writing some of my Fife doodlings, the stuff that gets me up-to-speed and confident with playing my Fife in the lower register, in the hope that they might be of use to other Fifers – in abc notation CDEFG, always bearing in mind that the Fife, like the Soprano/Descant Recorder, is written an octave below its actual sound. Because I do not at this moment have enough memory to run something like MuseScore on my Linux box, I am writing it in abc notation.
And to maximize enjoyment, and to forestall the tears that needing to retain an “Intellectual Property Rights Lawyer” would cause, I am releasing this music under a Creative Commons (Attribution | Non-Commercial) license (If it is important to you to use this commercially, please get in touch with me.). Corrections are welcome.
Share and Enjoy!
X:1
T:Fifing Exercises
C:Studies
M:3/4
L:1/4
K:C
C | E<F G E | C D<E F | G E/2G/2 C | E F<A G | A G/2F/2 E | F A/2G/2 D | E A F | D E C |
Some unmagical musings 