Ulster fifes

jemtheflute · Post by **jemtheflute** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 4:54 am

Well, here's something new and interesting my eBay Favourite searches have just turned up...... Angus Fifes & eBay shop.

N.B. I have no connection with or commercial interest in this.

"Interesting" in particular regarding various discussions on C&F and Woodenflute over time about fifes, what precisely "fifes" are or to what instruments the term may be properly applied, and also the musical associations and uses of them. Whilst I had of course heard of the lambeg, I had no idea it had its own sort-of-separate (from the better known Ulster Marching Band flute band set) fifing tradition, let alone that that tradition uses C# instruments (semitone below a D piccolo, "in B" in orchestral terms). As far as the "fife" definition goes, the website for Angus Fifes linked above doesn't give any technical info on the construction/design, so I don't know if they have a cylindrical bore. The profile and the finger-hole size and spacing certainly looks classic true fife.

boyd · Post by **boyd** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 6:47 am

Flute player Rev Gary Hastings has published a book about such things...fifing and the tunes associated with it...a very rural Ulster pastime that is maybe gonna come back now that the shackles of politics and religion are loosening.

The tradition was in danger of dying out

Boyd

Ceili_whistle_man · Post by **Ceili_whistle_man** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 7:40 am

Jem,

I have just picked up my Miller Browne flute which sits doing nothing at the side of my computer screen 24 hours a day. ('cept gather dust)
It is 'in B' (really C#?) just like the Angus fifes you link to, the difference being mine has five keys fitted. Although technically it is a fife, it is always refered to as a flute in Belfast. I used to play in the type of marching band you mention, the style of playing there was totally different from what was required from fifers who played along to the Lambeg drum.
The Ulster marching band use the five keyed fife, better known as an Orange flute (after the Orange Order).
Lambeg drumming is done mostly with the accompaniment of a keyless fife which is not known as an Orange flute.
On this page, scroll down and you will see a Fife of the kind used along with the Lambeg drum. http://www.causewaymusic.co.uk/cdftf.html
There is a very strong tradition of fifing in Antrim and County Down which died down over the yeras but has made a resurgence in more recent times. Here is a more detailed description of fifing Ulster Scots style.
http://www.causewaymusic.co.uk/usfif.html
When playing along with the Lambeg drum, jigs and reels are played with modified timing. One tune I liked in particular was 'Young men in their bloom' which is a jig with 4/4 timing but with six notes to each bar. The first note of each bar is held for two beats and the other two beats played almost as normal.

jemtheflute · Post by **jemtheflute** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:08 am

Thanks for the info. Ceili-whistle-man - interesting, and I'll follow the links when I get a chance.....

Your post kinda points up the usual confusion over fifes and band-flutes, though - I'm virtually certain that your Miller Browne 5-key will have a simple system flute bore - cylindrical head and tapering conoid body - and as such it's a band-flute commonly colloquially mis-termed a "fife". The whole pitch thing is a can of worms too (what did you do with it, Cocusflute? It's vanished again just when we need it!) as it can be hard to distinguish between High Pitch Bb and modern concert pitch B! Your Miller Browne, though will have (I'm pretty sure) a B or Bb six-finger note and diatonic scale. The Lambeg fifes have, as I understand it, a C# six-finger note and diatonic scale. The orchestral terminology names flutes a tone below how we think of them, so your "B" would be their "A", not "C#". (There's been loads of threads/discussions of this confusing issue.....)

EDIT - aaaah, I've just been reading the links you gave - seems the C# pitching is actually a residue of late Classical (late C18th-early C19th) orchestral pitch with A in the 430s Hz, roughly a semitone below modern pitch, so these are really Low Pitch D instruments (by contrast with the High Pitch Bb band flutes!!!!!

)

boyd · Post by **boyd** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:22 pm

Now...I don't want to start any flamewar stuff...

..but this clip will give you an idea what the whole thing is about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7UzN8UvI5g

Quite a competition between the fifers and drummers.
And not an ear protector to be seen

This is better maybe....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-ejl37IPUo

boyd · Post by **boyd** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:29 pm

And these would be "flutes" to an Ulsterman...as opposed to fifes that were in the clip before.

Quite pretty stuff I think you'll agree, if you can dump any of the political associations
(and I hope that is happening more and more)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJcet7fgmi8

jemtheflute · Post by **jemtheflute** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:56 pm

Brilliant stuff, Boyd - thanks for finding and linking those - they certainly fit with my understanding of the terminology. Not sure how much of the lambegs I could take, though - a bit monotonous/unvaried compared with some drumming one hears - I'd have expected a basser sound from them too!

boyd · Post by **boyd** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 6:03 pm

I think you need to be standing beside a Lambeg to get the full heart-shuddering, resonating, palpitating effect.

Expect your fillings to loosen and your innards to pulsate in time to the beat.

The internet and video and sound recording just won't take you there!!!

david quinn · Post by **david quinn** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 6:22 pm

The Miller browne is pitched B flat and is truly in a as Jem Says.

Marching bands use keyed flutes, http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kGnyT4U8GeQ like this band withj parts including piccolo with keys aiding the chroamtic notes and fifes would be referred to as keyless or would usually have the e flat/d sharp involving cross fingering. Some bands just play the melody with no parts.

Their are a varied mixture of Marching bands in Ulster using fifes here is a clip of One using Antique Skeleton drums with a unique sound and using fifes playing mostly tunes done on the pipes http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OsNAmNF2wMs

As said their would be a fifer accompanying a lambeg drum.

For the Record i play in a marching band and get a bit annoyed when people refer to English made Flutes as Irish flutes as the vast majority of these flutes were made for bands in Ulster and Scotland!

Ceili_whistle_man · Post by **Ceili_whistle_man** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:10 am

Sorry folks, there seems to be some muddled explanations come through here, and they are all from me!!
Let me unmuddy the waters as it where!
I always thought my Miller Browne was in Bb, that was what I was told when I was a kid and first started playing. I have just gone to my keyboard, and yes the flute is in Bb....that is if the bell note gives me the key of the instrument in this case? So... all those marching band tunes that I played for all those years were on a Bb flat flute!
Again, I took it for granted as a kid when I was told that it was a flute that I was playing, so that was good enough for me. It wasn't until many years later that someone (who was a bit more in the know than I was about flutes/fifes) told me that technically it was a keyed fife I was playing. He went on to describe why, ( I can't remember what it was about them he said was different, all I was interested in was playing the damn thing!!)
Now I am at the point where I really don't care if the Miller Browne is a flute or a fife

!! Personally I go for the flute description because I have seen/heard fifes being played with the Lambeg drum and my flute sounds nothing like and looks nothing like those fifes.
Jem, I have a dvd here that I will send you if you are interested, it gives a really good condensed history of the Lambeg drum and all the different styles and regional variations there are in the playing. Did you know that the drums play the tunes that the fifers are playing? They aren't like rock drummers who find a beat that fits around a guitar riff or base line. The experienced listener waits for either the fifer or the drummer to call a tune, then they can listen to the song/tune being picked out rythmically on the drum.
The clip of the massed drums and fifes features a modified hornpipe, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7UzN8UvI5g the name of which escapes me, I should know it, it is about as common to fifing as 'Drowsy Maggie' is to a session!
I also agree with you Boyd, the condenser mic on a video camera just hasn't got the dynamic range or 'oomph' in playback to give the Lambeg drum any feel. Standing next to one waiting to see if your own belly skin or the skin on the drum bursts first is just an awesome sensation!
You know those wa-ky books about 'a hundred things you should do/see before you die'? Well I say put, 'stand next to a 'Slasher' in full tilt' some where on that list!
I'm away for a lie down!!!

jemtheflute · Post by **jemtheflute** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:14 am

Right, then. I wrote to David Angus to ask about his instruments, and, with his permission, here is the correspondence - speaks for itself really:

Jem Hammond to David Angus 19:12:07 wrote: Dear David,
I have just discovered your fifes via one of my regular eBay searches. I am not at present interested in buying one, nice as they look - I'm a flute player, not a fifer..... However, I do have a technical question out of simple interest, and your website doesn't (yet, at any rate) have any technical/design info on it. (A suggestion for the future, if you haven't thought of it?). The specific question is, are your fifes true fifes with cylindrical bore, or are they a hybrid using a conoid or partially conoid bore? More generally, what are your design models - have you copied specific historic instruments?

I have started a thread on your instruments on the Flute Forum on Chiff and Fipple here: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=55946. There have been various discussions about fifes on the forum in the past, and in general flute people seem to know rather little about this related tradition - myself included. The terminology and the design difference between true fifes and band flutes can be controversial as well as misleading! Perhaps you might like to contribute your answers to my questions there?

Thanks in anticipation, and good luck with your business.
Regards - and seasonal greetings,
Jem Hammond (jemtheflute)

David Angus to Jem Hammond 20:12:07 wrote: Hi Jem
Thanks for your interest in my fifes. I can confirm that my fifes are cylindrical bore and are an exact replica of an old C# fife which I had in my possession which was approximately 100 years old. This old fife was used to accompany Lambeg drums in Northern Ireland. As these fifes are almost impossible to obtain now I decided to make them myself, being a joiner/cabinet maker. After many disasters and much 'blue air' I finally achieved what I wanted in these fifes and am now providing many Lambeg Fifers in Northern Ireland and a lot of interest is being shown in these.
My next step, of course, was to make them in various keys and out of different woods. I have been providing fifes in the key of Bb to various re-enactment societies in the British Isles. These are mostly made out of Rosewood. I have also been making them in the key of D which is quite popular and also in A and G. I am now working on a low D keyless simple flute which is much like an Irish flute. At present these have a cylindrical bore and work very well. My next project is to produce a conical bore.
I was reading on your forum about Miller Browne flutes being the same as fifes but only with keys. I would like to suggest that any Miller Browne flutes that I have had have a conical bore and not a cylindrical bore like my fifes.
I hope you find this of interest and thanks again for your interest.
Regards
Davy Angus
http://www.angusfifes.com

Helpful and informative. Thanks Davy.

jemtheflute · Post by **jemtheflute** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:32 am

Ceili-whistle-man - thanks for the dvd offer - I'll pass, though I appreciate the offer. I'm interested, but not that interested..... I can imagine what you mean about the effect of lambegs live, and the stuff about how they play the tunes is interesting - I guess it's like many things in music, you have to learn how to listen to it or it's not immediately apparent. When I said about other drumming styles, I wasn't thinking of rock drum kits (don't listen much to that kind of thing, nor find it interesting), but rather of African drumming (polyrhythmic), or Samba, or Indian tabla and other kinds of Indian drumming I've come across, or even the developed military type drumming of army-style drum corps or Scottish pipe bands. The massed lambegs in Boyd's linked clip may have been playing the tune, but they were all playing the same thing (in not stunningly good ensemble) and I found it lost my attention quite quickly as there were no contrasting parts, development, variations or cross rhythms etc. If that's not part of the style, fair enough, and without experiencing rather more of it and preferably live, I'm not dismissing it - but those were my impressions based on that limited exposure.

JS · Post by JS » Thu Dec 20, 2007 11:25 am

Thanks, all, for the very interesting thread. I'm getting more and more taken by the sound of the fife, whether it's these Ulster players, or Skip Healy, or Otha Turner (http://www.othaturner.com/).

boyd · Post by **boyd** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:07 pm

jemtheflute wrote: The massed lambegs in Boyd's linked clip may have been playing the tune, but they were all playing the same thing (in not stunningly good ensemble) and I found it lost my attention quite quickly as there were no contrasting parts, development, variations or cross rhythms etc.

Sorry, I posted the first clip out of divilment...its not a good example as its actually 4 different Drum & Fife bands. .. plus a few juniors.. so way too many...but you get an idea of the hairblasting volume...

The 2nd clip maybe is a better example...2 drums and 3 fifes...very traditional, and much more together.
I have seen a better example somewhere, but I'm darned if I can find it now.

B

BillG · Post by **BillG** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 2:49 pm

Great thread! On this side of the Pond we call them Fife and Drum Corps and/or Fife, Drum and Bugle Corps. There sometimes was a Glochenspiel added. My first taste of playing music was in a Boy Scout Fife, Drum and Bugle Corps (with a Gloch.). Although we also played Bb instruments the sound was somewhat different. I currently play keyless simple system flute using many of the fife tunes from the 1800's and early 1900's. The fife is not a parlor instrument but the tunes are identical to Irish music: jigs, hornpipes, marches, et al.

I'd like Skip Healy to jump in here and provide a sample of his playing. He is my idol for fife playing - and he makes great ones as well. Well, until he chimes in, go here http://www.skiphealy.com/music/cd/cd_pu ... _chasm.htm and make a selection.