I have some questions

[cocusflute]

..I'm not "quite" that old...

Actually the avatar is Jack when he was younger. He is that old.

[Jack Bradshaw]

I should have been more specific...by "in those days" I meant the Renaissance...they were all cylindrical then......

Terry is correct of course...fifes, as far as I know, have always been cylindrical (could be wrong but...as far as I know)

[Jack Bradshaw]

..I'm not "quite" that old...

Actually the avatar is Jack when he was younger. He is that old.

Another country heard from...(almost a contemporary)

[I.D.10-t]

I should have been more specific...by "in those days" I meant the Renaissance...they were all cylindrical then......

Actually, (from what I have read) some of the Renaissance flutes were scraped out to help bring them up to tune and were not completely cylindrical. Undercutting of the tone holes helped to bring it further in tune. To my knowledge this was not done to the fifes of the time, which were usually inexpensive lower quality instruments.

I had the chance to play a renaissance flute in A and it felt alien to me even though it is a half step away from my fife.

[Jack Bradshaw]

I should have been more specific...by "in those days" I meant the Renaissance...they were all cylindrical then......

Actually, (from what I have read) some of the Renaissance flutes were scraped out to help bring them up to tune and were not completely cylindrical. Undercutting of the tone holes helped to bring it further in tune. To my knowledge this was not done to the fifes of the time, which were usually inexpensive lower quality instruments.

I had the chance to play a renaissance flute in A and it felt alien to me even though it is a half step away from my fife.

Makes sense to me.....

[Cork]

Hello all,... but I want to know what is the differences of a flute and a fife? Aren't they the same? They are both sideblown right?

By now, some of the differences between a fife and a flute have become apparent, eh?

[Doug_Tipple]

I guess that we have this almost settled until the question pops up again. I did a search for fife and got Barney Fife, not much help. More helpful, however, is what is written at Wikipedia: fife

At the bottom of the article they begin to talk about modern, conical-bore fifes that have been manufactured since 1950. You could argue, of course, that these are not really fifes, but words tend to change meaning with time. The manufacturers call them fifes. If we wanted to be more rigid and confined to the older usage of the word, we could say that the modern, conical-bore instruments are fife-like. That should please everybody. What distinguishes a modern fife or pseudo-fife, more than whether the bore is cylindrical or conical, is that they are tuned to play best in the second and third octaves for traditional fife music, whereas small flutes (cylindrical or conical) are designed to play best in the first and second octaves, making them not suitable for fife music.

[hans]

While the infantry company marched, the drummer and fifer set the cadence. During marches, the fifer improvised tunes, creating variations on a theme while keeping the rhythm of the march. While the unit rested, the drummers and fifers played music to entertain the soldiers.

No rest for the wicked! - Poor guys!

~Hans

[talasiga]

Hello all.

This might sound like a silly question but I want to know what is the differences of a flute and a fife? Aren't they the same? They are both sideblown right?

Hi, I like Terry McGee's answer the best
but not if it implies (wittingly or unwittingly)
that an instrument is only a flute if it has a tapered bore.

Transverse flutes have differing bore types including cylindrical bores of
* Renaissance flutes
* various economy Irish flutes such as Tipples and Olwell bamboos
* Indic bamboo flutes (bansuri and venu) from bass F to sky high
* Far Eastern bamboo flutes (full range of keys)
* Boehm flutes.

What Terry has said certainly clarifies what makes a FIFE the TYPE of transverse flute it is. It is still a flute.

Actually, (from what I have read) some of the Renaissance flutes were scraped out to help bring them up to tune and were not completely cylindrical. Undercutting of the tone holes helped to bring it further in tune. To my knowledge this was not done to the fifes of the time, which were usually inexpensive lower quality instruments.

You can argue that they may not have been completely cylindrical but you cannot argue that therefore they were conical. They are still flutes.

[Gordon]

Just to jump in on the first topic I've jumped in on in a long, long time...

The word flute, like the word hound, implies a long list of sub-groups. If I say I have a hound, it doesn't help the person I'm talking to to know whether I'm talking about a basset, a beagle, a wolfhound or a dachsund, if I don't use those words instead of just the word hound. Dog is more like woodwind -- it has an even larger range of meaning. So, whether we're talking about a fife or a piccolo vs. a small flute vs. a concert pitch flute, whether modern or conical, it's more a matter of knowing what kind of flute we're talking about when we're talking to someone else. After all, a beagle is a kind of hound, and a fife is a kind of flute.

Back into hibernation,
Gordon

[Denny]

set theory

[talasiga]

......
So, whether we're talking about a fife or a piccolo vs. a small flute vs. a concert pitch flute, whether modern or conical, it's more a matter of knowing what kind of flute we're talking about when we're talking to someone else. After all, a beagle is a kind of hound, and a fife is a kind of flute.

.....

Good post but not so as to imply that a definition of a beagle needs be in terms of its distinction from a hound.

The question, "what is the difference between a fife and a flute" is analgous to the q., "what is the difference between a beagle and a hound"
whereas the better question, "what is the difference between a beagle and an Irish hound" is analogous to the better question, "what is the difference between a fife and an Irish flute".

There are even better questions than those but I dare not stand and be counted.

[Gordon]

Well, we're taking a fairly simple analogy apart for no good reason and making it less so, but...

The question is the difference between a fife and a flute, and the very general answer is that they're both flutes. But when you call a fife a fife, and a flute a flute, the person asking is able to picture something quite different, and that's why we use different words for similar things. Us Irish fluters often have to add details, wooden and conical, keyed or keyless, to the average person that pictures a 'modern' silver Boehm flute, but in the world of flutes, they are really much the same thing, used for similar purposes, and both are distinctly different than a fife.

Just so, there is no difference between a beagle and a hound, in that a beagle is, in fact, a hound. But, like fife to flute, there are huge differences between breeds of hounds. So, if I say a fife is a small flute, usually pitched in Bb, that is far more descriptive than saying I'm playing a flute, even though, in fact, I am playing a flute. By saying beagle, rather than a kind of hound, one pictures a small, shorthaired hound with longish ears, a well-proportioned body and a keen nose, and that easily eliminates, say, an elkhound or a wolfhound.

If I say I play a small F flute, am I playing a small flute, or a large piccolo?

The fact is, when we begin breaking down flutes into conical and cylindrical, a variety of materials and key numbers, or lack thereof, and - worse - small(er) flutes in a variety of pitches, the definition of flute, fife, piccolo, Baroque, Rennaissance, Irish or concert, becomes horribly muddled, except to those of us that play such things. And if I show you a mixed breed or a lesser-known breed of hound, what do I say?

I say it's a kind of hound, but absolutely not a beagle.

Best,
Gordon

[Aodhan]

The Italian word piccolo translates as "small". It is an adjective, not a noun; you can't actually have a "small". (Almost - the English used to refer to their underwear as "smalls".)

That was short form for the original wording, "small pants", which was eventually shortened to just "smalls". Much the same way that modern man refers to boxer briefs as just boxers. (Makes you wonder if a non English speaker ever wondered why americans are wearing dogs in their pants...)

John

[talasiga]

Like Irish and Australian are adjectives as in "an Irish song and an Australian joke". However both are nouns also as in, "That is just so typical of the Irish and what would you expect of an Australian?"

Parts of speech are evinced by function more than form.