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Teaching the "10-hole Beastie" to a 6-hole fifer

By: Janis E. Kenderdine ©2005

General 6-hole to 10-hole conversion
Exercises
Quirks of the fife
Tuning
Rolling in and out
Lipping up and down

General 6-hole to 10-hole conversion

• Keep both thumbs and right pinky down at all times.
• Move left pinky & left ring finger in unison (both off or both on)
• Relax! No death grips = no hand cramps
• Flat fingers (you’re not playing a keyed instrument, so you don’t need curved fingers)
• Make sure the holes are completely covered (especially that right hand)

Exercises (always practice with a tuner)

1. D scale in the low octave. This will ensure you don’t disturb the neighbors, disturb yourself (and thus frustrate you into not practicing), and has several benefits:
• Any problems with hole-covering will be uncovered in the lower octave. Practice this until you can do it without cracking notes. Big, full tones!
• Try to play loud without cracking notes.
• Then try playing soft, and then alternate (volume control).
2. G scale in the low octave.
3. D scale in the middle octave.
4. G scale in the middle/high octave.
   • Some inside info: MCV plays F#3 (3rd/High octave) on their Healy Deluxe 10-hole fifes with all the right hand holes closed. It may sound a little odd/overtoned at first, but the high F# is an extremely sharp note, naturally, and this helps flatten it down. (And it sounds fine from outside the block).

Do the above, and you should be able to play anything you could play on a 6-hole fife.

Quirks of the fife (or any non-tempered instrument)

A piano is a “tempered” instrument – i.e. all the notes are evenly spaced, and should (theoretically) play in tune with itself. This is not so with the fife. It is not in tune with itself. This is why certain arrangements that sound fine on a piano or computer are shriekingly bad on fifes.

We initially tune on a D3 (3rd/high octave), but that’s not to say the rest of the notes are in tune. This is just a starting point. Every instrument is different, as is every player. Certain notes are problematic for certain instruments and certain players, and it’s up to that instrument’s “owner” to learn how to find their best tuning. Also note that as you play for a while, you may tend to go sharper as your instrument warms up.

For consistency, I recommend putting your fife together and lined up how you feel comfortable, and scoring a small line at the break of your head joint and body, so when you take your fife apart and put it back together (or push in/pull out to tune it) you can line up the marks and be in the right “position” to start playing. We’re trying to make a very unpredictable, inconsistent instrument as consistent as possible, so we can get consistent results!

Tuning (and other non-“ancient” things)

You will notice the first two octaves of the fife are pretty well in-tune (that’s not to say we should ignore them on the tuner!). It’s the third octave (and approaching it) that it starts getting temperamental, and we use weird fingerings to try to play in tune. There’s a whole physics explanation as to why the weird fingerings, but for now, we’ll just say it’s to compensate for the weird harmonics produced.

In any case, practice with a tuner, and take note of which notes are really sharp or flat, and mark them down for reference. When you practice your scales or tunes at home, play at a regular pace and then stop/hold on a problem-note, check your tuner, and then continue.

Roll with the punches

Many will say “roll in” or “roll out” when referring to tuning. This is the crude way of fixing notes, but many people would seem to rather do this on occasion than fix their notes correctly and permanently, and train their ear. Rolling in or out works if everything is sharp or flat, (and tuning in the middle of a song or in a parade when the person to your left is sharp or flat) but it’s not a good idea (and impractical) for fixing individual notes.

Keep a stiff upper lip

To fix individual notes on the fly, we “lip up” or “lip down” when we hit the note. People would tell me to do this, offering no explanation, until I finally figured it out on my own. Basically, if you pinch the corners of your mouth a little harder, and make your lips tighter directing the air slightly “up”, this is “lipping up” and will make your note a little sharper. If you relax and loosen your lips a little, and change the air direction to point down a little more directly into the fife, this is known as “lipping down” and will flatten a note. After consciously working on this for a while, you won't even have to think about it when you play, because you will automatically do it when you hit that note out of habit!