insidiousraven wrote:MTGuru wrote:Sweet fifes are tuneable at the joint,
Mine didn't have a joint, so it was difficult to tune with other instruments. I could roll my embouchure to adjust, but it was getting a little ridiculous.
Ah, something like the one-piece "Camp Fife", I guess. Then maybe all you really need is a tuneable C fife, depending on your repertoire. For example, for Irish dance tunes, a combination of D/C instruments covers virtually the entire range of keys/modes with very little half-holing or cross-fingering needed.
Also ... most tuneable flutes/fifes/whistles are set up so that you can pull out quite a bit to tune flatter, but not push in so far. If you're playing in cold temperatures, this can be a problem, as your instrument will tend to be consistently flat. In which case, since you're playing with mostly other tuneable instruments (guitar, fiddle, cello, recorders), it behooves them to accommodate you by tuning a bit flat - especially since stringed instruments will tend to go
sharp when cold. If your bandmates don't understand the physics of why all that's so, you need to educate them.
As for keys, you'll limit yourself thinking in terms of a 4-keyed instrument. Six or eight keyed timber flutes are more common - including, as Ben suggests, reconditioned antique flutes. For example, a German "nach Meyer" flute can often be had rather cheap, and may be perfectly OK for your needs (if it can handle A440 tuning).