Toot Your Own Horn

When Skip Healy was a child, he often visited the grounds of Rhode Island’s Varnum House Museum (with its extensive military and naval history collection) to sit on a stone bench and play his fife. Today, he’s the curator and runs a fife- and flute-making shop in the carriage house. “Fifes and pipes are the people’s instruments,” he says. From his years of playing around the world, he has refined his design, taking in the needs of his fellow musicians, particularly traditional Irish musicians and New England and European fife-and-drum corps. His instruments are made of fine materials such as African blackwood. Fifes are priced from $300, piccolos from $400, flutes from $1,000. Available from the Healy Flute & Fife Company, East Greenwich, Rhode Island. 401-885-2502; skiphealy.com

PRINT