Giffe grew up in Coll­ege Cor­ners, Jay Coun­ty, In­di­a­na (near Port­land), and served in the Army during the clos­ing days of the Amer­i­can ci­vil war. Af­ter the war, he at­tend­ed Li­ber Coll­ege, and stu­died law for two years. While in col­lege, he was a mem­ber of the col­lege glee club, and took les­sons in the col­lege sing­ing school. Lat­er, he stu­died with teach­ers such as J. W. Suff­ern, George Root, Lu­ther Em­er­son, Ho­ra­tio Pal­mer, and Hen­ry Perk­ins.

Giffe had a fine bar­i­tone voice, and was much in de­mand as a con­cert sing­er. He soon be­came pop­u­lar as a chor­us di­rect­or and con­ven­tion con­duct­or. His first book for sing­ing schools was New Fa­vo­rite, which sold thou­sands of co­pies. The Ol­iv­er Dit­son Com­pa­ny of Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts, pub­lished ma­ny of his ear­ly works, but Giffe went on to form his own pub­lish­ing house, the Home Mu­sic Com­pa­ny, in Lo­gans­port, In­di­a­na. He al­so ed­it­ed the Home Mu­sic Jour­nal for sev­er­al years. Lat­er, Giffe be­came su­per­vis­or of mu­sic in the pub­lic schools in his home town. And he was one of three men se­lect­ed to de­liv­er an ad­dress in Lo­gans­port, In­di­a­na, at the me­mor­i­al ser­vic­es for as­sas­sin­at­ed pre­si­dent Will­iam Mc­Kin­ley.

Giffe and his wife Nan­cy had no child­ren. His works in­clude:

• The Brilliant, 1874
• The New Deal (with Lou­is Eich­horn) (Lo­gans­port, In­di­a­na: Home Mu­sic Com­pa­ny, 1898)
• A Prac­ti­cal Course in Har­mo­ny and Mu­sic­al Com­po­si­tion

Sources

Hymns

1. I’ll Not Give Up the Bi­ble