Origin of "cheater" for fife mouthpiece

Claude Bauer

First Sergeant
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Jan 8, 2012
(I don't see a musician's forum on this site, so I'm putting this here.)

I’m curious about the origin of the word “cheater” as used to describe a mouthpiece for the fife. Is this a reenactorism or is there any historical evidence that this term was actually used?

I’ve heard conflicting stories from reenactors regarding the mouthpiece for the fife:

They were used in the military music schools during the war because they had thousands of new musicians they had to train up quickly, and they called them cheaters because if you used one when learning, you were cheating at playing the instrument.

They were invented after the war so toothless old veterans could still play and needed a way to cheat at playing the instrument.

However, I’ve seen ads for fife mouthpieces from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and none of them use the word “cheater,” nor does a 1904 patent for a fife with a mouthpiece I found. I don't see a reference to "cheater" in any of my Civil War books.

I keep coming across pictures of Civil War soldiers holding fifes with mouthpieces attached and can’t help but wonder if they really called them “cheaters,” which holds such a negative connotation, given their presence and apparent acceptance as an accessory for the instrument.

If someone could please point me to some historical references regarding this topic, where the term is actually documented as being used, I’d appreciate it.

Thank you.

Most recent find--this Union CW musician has a mouthpiece on his fife.

fiferwithcheater.jpg
 
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We can find these in use on war time era fifes and even much further back.... I don't immediately recall a collective single term for the mouthpiece attachment... each respective maker coined their own name or phrase on it... If memory serves correctly, I do recall some references calling them a "Fipple"... I think the 'cheater" is a slang term... but don't recall when that started...
 
We can find these in use on war time era fifes and even much further back.... I don't immediately recall a collective single term for the mouthpiece attachment... each respective maker coined their own name or phrase on it... If memory serves correctly, I do recall some references calling them a "Fipple"... I think the 'cheater" is a slang term... but don't recall when that started...

The ads for them from the 19th and early 20th Centuries simply called them a fife mouthpiece. One ad notes they are "Very useful for beginners." I think "cheater" is a derogatory slang term, probably coined by someone who didn't like them. I have been unable to find the term in lists of CW slang or CW terminology or any dictionary defined in that context. If it were around at the time and accepted as common usage, someone surely would have recorded it somewhere. As a result, I don't think reenactors should be telling the public that's what they were called during the CW unless they can provide some evidence to the contrary.

I have also never seen any evidence for either of the stories about these devices that reenactors are fond of relating to the public (above), so I think that should stop too--we don't want to contribute to the pool of misinformation that's floating around.
 
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