150CN American Fife

My main reason for purchasing the fife is after learning to play the tin whistle, I wanted practice using an embouchure before making my own flutes. I wanted to point out for those who have never attempted to make sound through a transverse flute that use an embouchure hole. (The hole you blow across instead of the whistle shaped head that recorders have) That it is not straightforward. Your mouth has to be positioned just right. Took me about a week to get regular sound out of it. However, this is not my first attempt at blowing a transverse wind instrument. This one is well made, nice and heavy, has a good sound to it. And as far as embouchure holes go, this one is more tolerant of incorrect mouth placement than others I have tried. Very nice fife with a perfect weight. Not so light that it is difficult to keep in place, but not so heavy that it would give someone trouble holding it in position.

Basic Fife in C for a great price! It has a nice clear tone, and is a great little instrument for the price.You may have to make adjustment in embouchure to find a good tone, but there are many Youtube instruction videos if you are not familiar with how to do that. This fife is in C, and most sheet music is in D which means you either have to transpose it, make fingering adjustments, or just play for fun and be off by a note if you use sheet music with fingering charts (melody is still the same, so it's not bad) ! It comes with a fingering chart for 3 octaves, so you'll have the correct finger placement for production. The fun with the Fife book was OK, but if you have no experience with reading sheet music (it does have a good introductory synopsis of how to do that),you may prefer to Google "free sheet music for the Fife with fingering charts". Sheet music with the fingering positions under each note is the fastest way to start playing music and there is a lot of it out there. I actually found a great sight for The Tin Whistle Song Book (compatible with the fife) which gives sheet music with fingering charts under each note (in D, but it's close enough if you are playing for fun). It has tons of free sheet music as well http://www.irish-folk-songs.com/tin-whistle.html. Overall this is a fun instrument that you can create great music with at a great price! If you are looking for a "real" professional fife for a marching band there are online sites like The Fife and Drum Shop where you can find a D fife identical to this in D for about 50 English pounds, as well as many others. I'll stick with this one for $15, and be off by a note! it's just for fun for me!Also, I purchased this for $20.13 and when I saw that the price dropped to $15.01, I contacted the seller and requested a price adjustment for the difference, and they gave it without issue. Great customer service!

The fife is in the key of C. I bought it as a cheap practice instrument that I would not be real sorry to lose. For me, I would have preferred the key of D, but I knew what I was getting.It is a little heavy for my taste. Otherwise it really feels like a quality instrument. It is a little slippery, and therefore difficult to hold.Intonation was a surprise. Not very well tempered across the scale and pretty flat over all. I used two dowel rods*, one long enough to reach the cork from the foot of the instrument and one short enough to reach from the head, and adjusted the cork until I could easily play the fundamental note in tune, and still adjust sharp and flat by "lipping" it. The surprise was, this also tuned the middle hole notes and made them better tempered with the rest of the instrument.Once the intonation issue was corrected the instrument became very easy to play and it is very easy to produce a good clear note. I very much like the instrument and the sound it produces.* NOTE: DO NOT use just one dowel rod, and try to get dowels very close to the diameter of the fife. Otherwise you run the risk of punching the cork out of the instrument completely and you will really regret that. Also note that the cork should be very close to the blow hole. The closer it is the sharper the instrument will be. I have a couple other fifes, and while the position of the cork is supposed to be more of a tone quality issue, it is an intonation issue, too. One of my fifes is one solid piece of wood. there is no cork. It is just drilled out up to the end and left solid. The blow hole on this fife is right at the stop. My other fife is a nice wooden fife in D in the style of a Civil War fife. It does have a cork to stop the end. I had to adjust that cork for intonation, too. That cork is also very close to the blow hole.

This is a solid fife and I found it easy to get the basic notes after a few minutes with no experience in transverse flutes. It will take me some time to get smooth. However, do keep in mind it must be overblown. It functions much like a pipe from pipe and tabor, which I do have experience with. So breath control is critical.

I actually bought this fife for my wife who played the flute years ago. I recently started messing around with it myself. I think it's a very good quality fife. Unfortunetly for me, I can't seem to get the hang of proper lip placement etc. I put nthis fife up to my lips in preparation to play, and try to make a note. About half the time I get a sound. Of those attempts, about half the time I get a rich, satisfying sound. The other half the time I get honks, squeaks, etc. I played the sax many years ago in grade school, and was able to play all right. I am not blaming the instrument at all. It's just me. My wife the flute player says I will get the hang of it, but I'm not so sure. I recently bought both a recorder and a tin whistle, and seem to be able to get some where with those. One must also be able to control the amount of air they blow, as blowing the same fingered note will give an octave difference.The thing is, that the sound this little fife makes when you do it right, is so nice, that I can't hardly put the thing down. But, I am on the verge of giving up on it. I'm giving it 5 stars for the sound I know it can make if played properly.