"What is the difference between a violin and a fiddle?" I need fresh answers!
I need some more creative responses to the question "what is the difference between a violin and a fiddle?"My response has just been "a violin sings and a fiddle dances (which I actually disagree with, because they both sing and dance), or a more lengthy answer "who is playing, what they are playing and how it's set up." If I want to give a short answer, I just say "nothing".
I need some new ideas!
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However, there are differences when the term is used as an adjective. "Fiddle Tunes" are not generally referred to a "Violin Tunes" and "Violin Sonatas" are not referred to as "Fiddle Sonatas."
So there's that.
Fiddles have straaayngs.
Violinists go for a smooth silky tone with clean playing whereas fiddlers like to capture that distinct scratchy fiddle feeling. Violinists like things to look clean, and fiddlers want to show off how much rosin they have and how much they've practiced.
Violinists play from music, but fiddlers just make stuff up in their heads and play it for the world as a performance. Violinists play sad music, and fiddlers play happy music.
Sometimes fiddles have non-standard shapes or string numbers, like 8, but violinists use intsruments with 4 strings.
Fiddlers play for the common people, and violinists serve the rich.
These are just impressions... I don't really know much about fiddle music, but it sure does look fun.
:)
Many classically trained violinists play bluegrass music.
I call, maybe erroneously, the instruments in the violin family, fiddles, as in bass fiddle.
Sadly, it seems that some of the best violinists in the world, who use "fiddle" and "violin" interchangeably, are not aware of that, and not aware of how many people who are into meaningless social class distinctions they are alienating by their carelessness. (wink)
A fiddle also has one or more rattlesnake tails inside for several important purposes:
- Tone improvement
- Scare away demons
- Break-up spider webs
"I don't really know much about fiddle music"
You made that abundantly clear.
A fiddle is fun to listen to
I do not play violin; I play fiddle. But I build violins, sometimes sold to fiddlers. My personal fiddles are not any different, except for a lower bridge and nut. Some fiddlers prefer a flatter bridge to reduce bow arm excursions, although I did come across one fiddler who liked to play triple-stops and had an exceptionally flat bridge.
But the main difference is that you don't clean fiddles.
I just came home from an Irish Christmas concert. The two fiddlers were just as skilled as a classical violinist, in fact, they were faster, with uncanny accuracy. One played excellent colle, and also played mandolin.
Anyone who looks down at fiddlers should go look deep into a mirror. Although I’m being classically trained, I’ll never become a music snob. I happen to like fiddling and playing violin both, as many of us do. I just do both with the same instrument.
Please look at the link: read again - for I'm sure you know it - WB Yeats' poem, and listen to his incantatory voice. Surely the fiddle is older than the violin, and has a simpler, purer soul? Any other favourite poems about violins and fiddles?
https://poetryarchive.org/poem/fiddler-dooney/
Favorite Poetry:
"Hey, diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon."
Source: Mother Goose
:-)
And it should also be noted that some "fiddle" music can be as
challenging as a Bach partita...Incidentally, the roots of this music, at least in the Scottish tradition, with which I am most familiar, are in the Baroque period. The ornaments, the improvisations, and sometimes the styles of bowing, reflect this. Many tunes require higher positions, and the flat or minor keys. Not to be despised.
The French term for fiddle music, which I prefer, is "la musique traditionelle". It's less pejorative. In Quebec, country fiddlers are sometimes referred to as "violoneux".
Thanks Parker. We needed this explanation. People don’t realize until they try it, that bluegrass fiddle is very challenging. Check out Augustin Hadelichs version of Orange Blossom Special on YouTube sometime. Folks who don’t think it’s hard should see videos of the late Kenny Baker, fiddler for the Bulegrass Boys, for 14 years.
https://organology.net/instrument/utogardon/
about the same size as the cello, but played with a drumstick.
Thank you Rebecca for sparking a lively and diverse conversation. What ideas have stood out for you, and what will you take from this back-and-forth, for the future?
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”
- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet," Act II, Scene II
“A rose is a rose is a rose.”
- Gertrude Stein, “Sacred Emily," 1913
Being classicaly trained, I just got paid to play at a Christmas Banquet this morning. I played simple traditional Christmas melodies (i.e. "Grown up Christmas List" and Chestnuts "Roasting on an Open Fire") with a clean violin, boxwood fittings and one fine tuner. I read 90% of the music and imorovised 10%. But I used cheap rosin. I'm having an identity crisis now!
- Gertrude Stein, “Sacred Emily," 1913
"Rosa rosa rosa est est." in Latin.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Fiddles
which also includes the cigar-box fiddle ... :) Yep, that's right, you can make and play a cigar-box fiddle, but I've never yet heard of someone playing a cigar-box violin.
More practically, the difference can be seen in three areas:
Who is playing and what is being played
If you play a classical repertoire, people will naturally say “violin,” while if you play a jig/reel/hoedown/folk tune on the same instrument, it is more common to say “fiddle.”
Playing style and sound goal
In classical, the tone is generally thought of as more “smooth, long phrases, controlled vibrato.” In fiddling, rhythm/groove, bow-pattern, double-stop, and dance-feel are also important—meaning the focus may be more on “playing the rhythm” than on tone. However, these are characteristics of the style, not the instrument.
Minor setup choices
Some fiddlers flatten the bridge a bit for convenience, or change the strings/tuning to suit local styles (such as cross-tuning). But these are not mandatory—many play the fiddle with a standard violin setup, and some also play classical.
This is why the simplest answer is:
“Violin and fiddle are the same thing—the difference is in the name, and the name changes when the style changes.”
If anyone wants to read more in detail—I've put together a short explanation of this topic (style, setup, and language differences) in one place, as a free resource: https://vee.llc/
(I've provided the link just for additional reading, check it out if you feel like it.)
And it's fascinating to think that before Google vomited that out, it read the Mail online first.
Now here's the only thing about all this that really matters:
Why don't we have a similarly informal name for the 'cello, like "fiddle" is for a violin?
Would somebody please work on that?
No, cello being an informal name for "violoncello" ain't gonna cut it. Needs to be more creative. Might get one a Nobel prize.
-Thank you
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