[LMB] OT: Fiddling

[Sue Wartell]

Key - my comments are not prefixed, Raye's are prefixed by a single>
and Tzivia's are prefixed by double>>

Raye said:
> --- Tzivia Adler <tadler at yeshivanet.com> wrote:
>
> > i need to know, can a person sing while fiddling?
>
> Possible but not done. <snip>

Not _usually_ done, perhaps, but there are those who do, and manage
quite well.

Fiddlers (in contrast to violinists) are often self-taught, or are
taught by someone who is self-taught.  They hold the instrument in
many different ways, depending on what they are trying to do, what
they've seen done, and what's comfortable.

>
> > don't they tuck fiddles the same as violins?

Depends on who's playing.  My husband's a fiddler (among other things)
and he's taken Irish fiddling courses from people who expect a very
specific and, for him, uncomfortable, position for the instrument
(essentially a classical violin hold), and from others who are much
more of the "whatever works for you" school of thought.  It often
depends on how they came to the music.  (i.e., whether they started
with classical violin or with fiddle)

> > aren't they the same thing but different quality?
>
> Yes and no.  ...
> Yes, they are the same thing, but I don't know about different quality

I concur, yes and no.  Yes, they are essentially the same instrument.
They may be set up differently (arcane stuff I don't fully understand,
but things like the arch of the bridge and the height of the strings
above the fingerboard, and the position of the bridge.)  I don't know
of anyone who "fiddles" on a Stradivarius.  But you have a wide range
of quality in both fiddles and violins.  The best quality fiddles are
better than the lowest quality violins.  And in instruments,
especially, quality is highly subjective.  What do you want it to
sound like?  If it sounds like that, it's good; if it doesn't, it's
not so good.


> - I've never heard someone who calls them 'violins' speak of 'fiddles',

I have; my husband and his musician friends will sometimes use the
terms interchangeably

> I always thought it was a regional dialect thing, like the way
> I refer to a 'bonnet' of a car but Americans of my acquaintance speak of the 'hood'.

In my experience it is not the instrument that makes the distinction,
but the music being played.  Serious music (perhaps more accurately,
music normally taught from written notation, by people in relatively
formal attire) is played on violins, whereas
folk/traditional/country/dance music (normally learned by ear, aka
oral tradition, and played by people in jeans, or laborer's clothing)
is played on fiddles.  (Please don't start a debate on my
parenthetical definitions - I know that they are wildly
oversimplified, and I can probably cite as many exceptions to them as
you can.  I'm trying to capture the flavor of the distinction, rather
than to prescribe precisely how one might distinguish a particular
performance or performer.)

Sue
in Columbus OH