Suddenly came a sound of music, fifes and drums.
"They Call Me Carpenter"
Upton Sinclair
The arrival of the Mahdi was announced by the beautiful and solemn notes of umbajas, but when he appeared there resounded the shrill notes of fifes, the beating of drums, the rattle of stones shaken in empty gourds, and whistling on elephants' teeth, all of which combined created an infernal din.
"In Desert and Wilderness"
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Outside one camp a battalion was marching away, a regiment of shadow-forms, and on the bank above them the band was playing them out with fifes and drums, such a merry little tune, so whimsical and yet so sad also in the heart of it, as it came trilling out of darkness.
"From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917"
Philip Gibbs