The profiled bores of the Cooperman Concert Fifes and the Cooperman McDonagh Fifes bring improved intonation to the traditional fife.  The two piece design allows for these bore designs, as well as for fine tuning at the joint and the use of additional tone holes to address the half-hole issues.  The distinction between a “fife” and a “band flute” in period records is vague; although most will agree that military field music “fifes” were more likely one piece, six hole instruments like our Traditional Fife above, the two piece fife has enjoyed great popularity in fife & drum corps since at least the early nineteen-sixties. For material and key information, see Basics.

The contemporary design Cooperman Concert Model fife is known for its mellow low register and very powerful upper register. Each fife is crafted of the finest instrument grade grenadilla with sterling silver rings, and is packaged in a wooden slider top box with a cleaning rod and tube of cork grease. 

This fife has the popular and traditional 6 tone holes, with several notes of the chromatic scale requiring the use of half-holes.  $ 200.00

The addition of the extra holes allows the fifer to play without half-hole fingerings, which some fifers feel allows for improved speed and accuracy.  This Cooperman Model features the 6 main tone holes along with 2 pinky register holes and 2 thumb register holes.  See (link to Cooperman McDonagh Models) for an alternative hole layout.  $215.00