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A fiddle is a violin played in various musical styles, especially folk traditions that are typically taught by ear. While fiddles and classical violins are similar, fiddles may have a flatter bridge and use steel strings for a brighter tone suited to dance rhythms and quick note changes. Fiddling emphasizes improvisation and ornamentation, differing from the sustained notes and vibrato common in classical music. Notable fiddlers such as Alasdair Fraser, Brittany Haas, and Alison Krauss often have classical training, bridging the gap between these musical worlds.

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History

The medieval fiddle emerged in 10th-century Europe, deriving from the Byzantine lira (Ancient Greek: λύρα, Latin: lira, English: lyre), a bowed string instrument of the Byzantine Empire and ancestor of most European bowed instruments.56

Lira spread widely westward to Europe; in the 11th and 12th centuries European writers use the terms fiddle and lira interchangeably when referring to bowed instruments.7

The violin in its present form emerged in early 16th-century northern Italy. The earliest pictures of violins, albeit with three strings, are seen in northern Italy around 1530, at around the same time as the words "violino" and "vyollon" are seen in Italian and French documents. One of the earliest explicit descriptions of the instrument, including its tuning, is from the Epitome musical by Jambe de Fer, published in Lyon in 1556.8 By this time, the violin had already begun to spread throughout Europe. The fiddle proved very popular among both street musicians and the nobility; the French king Charles IX ordered Andrea Amati to construct 24 violins for him in 1560.9 One of these instruments, the Charles IX, is the oldest surviving violin.

Over the centuries, Europe continued to have two distinct types of fiddles: one, relatively square-shaped, held in the arms, became known as the viola da braccio (arm viol) family and evolved into the violin; the other, with sloping shoulders and held between the knees, was the viola da gamba (leg viol) group. During the Renaissance the gambas were important and elegant instruments; they eventually lost ground to the louder viola da braccio family.10

Etymology

The etymology of fiddle is uncertain: it probably derives from the Latin fidula, which is the early word for violin, or it may be natively Germanic.11[verification needed]

The name appears to be related to Icelandic fiðla and also Old English fiðele.12 A native Germanic ancestor of fiddle might even be the ancestor of the early Romance form of violin.13

In medieval times, fiddle also referred to a predecessor of today's violin. Like the violin, it tended to have four strings, but came in a variety of shapes and sizes. Another family of instruments that contributed to the development of the modern fiddle are the viols, which are held between the legs and played vertically, and have fretted fingerboards.14

Ensembles

In performance, a solo fiddler, or one or two with a group of other instrumentalists, is the norm, though twin fiddling is represented in some North American, Scandinavian, Scottish and Irish styles. Following the folk revivals of the second half of the 20th century, it became common for less formal situations to find large groups of fiddlers playing together—see for example the Calgary Fiddlers, Swedish Spelmanslag folk-musician clubs, and the worldwide phenomenon of Irish sessions.1516

Orchestral violins, on the other hand, are commonly grouped in sections, or "chairs". These contrasting traditions may be vestiges of historical performance settings: large concert halls where violins were played required more instruments, before electronic amplification, than did more intimate dance halls and houses that fiddlers played in.

The difference was likely compounded by the different sounds expected of violin music and fiddle music. Historically, the majority of fiddle music was dance music,17 while violin music had either grown out of dance music or was something else entirely. Violin music came to value a smoothness that fiddling, with its dance-driven clear beat, did not always follow. In situations that required greater volume, a fiddler (as long as they kept the beat) could push their instrument harder than could a violinist. Various fiddle traditions have differing values.

Scottish, with cello

In the very late 20th century, a few artists successfully reconstructed the Scottish tradition of violin and "big fiddle", or cello. Notable recorded examples include Iain Fraser and Christine Hanson, Amelia Kaminski and Christine Hanson's Bonnie Lasses,18 Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas' Fire and Grace,19 and Tim Macdonald and Jeremy Ward's The Wilds.20

Balkan, with kontra

Hungarian, Slovenian, and Romanian fiddle players are often accompanied by a three-stringed variant of the viola—known as the kontra—and by double bass, with cimbalom and clarinet being less standard yet still common additions to a band. In Hungary, a three-stringed viola variant with a flat bridge, called the kontra or háromhúros brácsa makes up part of a traditional rhythm section in Hungarian folk music. The flat bridge lets the musician play three-string chords. A three-stringed double bass variant is also used.

Styles

To a greater extent than classical violin playing, fiddle playing is characterized by a huge variety of ethnic or folk music traditions, each of which has its own distinctive sound.

Europe

Great Britain

Ireland

  • Irish folk music fiddling including:
    • Donegal fiddling from the northwest in Ulster, which features mazurkas and a Scottish-influenced repertoire including Strathspey and Highland Fling dances. Fiddlers tend to play fast and make heavy use of staccato bowing and may from time to time "play the bass", meaning a second fiddler may play a melody an octave below where a first fiddler is playing it.
    • Sligo fiddling from northern Connacht, which like Donegal fiddling tends to be fast, but with a bouncier feel to the bowing.
    • Galway fiddling southern Connacht, which is slower than Sligo or Donegal traditions, with a heavier emphasis on ornamentation. Tunes are occasionally played in Eb or Bb to match the tonality of flat pipes.
    • Clare fiddling from northern Munster, which tends to be played near the slower Galway tempo yet with a greater emphasis on the melody itself rather than ornamentation.
    • Sliabh Luachra fiddling from the southwest in Munster, characterized by a unique repertoire of polkas and slides, the use of double stops and drones, as well as playing the melody in two octaves as in Donegal.23

Nordic countries

Continental Europe

Americas

United States

American fiddling is a broad category including traditional and modern styles:

Traditional
Modern

Canada

Fiddling remains popular in Canada, and the various homegrown styles of Canadian fiddling are seen as an important part of the country's cultural identity, as celebrated during the opening ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

Mexico

Mexican fiddling includes

South America

Africa, Asia and Australia

Variants

Near relations

Distant relations

See also

  • Music portal

Citations

Sources

  • The Fiddle Book, by Marion Thede, (1970), Oak Publications. ISBN 0-8256-0145-2.
  • The Fiddler's Fakebook, by David Brody, (1983), Oak Publications. US ISBN 0-8256-0238-6; UK ISBN 0-7119-0309-3.
  • Oldtime Fiddling Across America, by David Reiner and Peter Anick (1989), Mel Bay Publications. ISBN 0-87166-766-5. Has transcriptions (standard notation) and analysis of tunes from multiple regional and ethnic styles.
  • The Portland Collection, by Susan Songer, (1997), ISBN 0-9657476-0-3 (Vol. 2 ISBN 0-9657476-1-1)
  • North American Fiddle Music: a research and information guide by Drew Beisswenger (2011) Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-99454-5

References

  1. Gyles, Mary Francis (January 1947). "Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned". The Classical Journal. 42 (4): 211–17. JSTOR 3291751. /wiki/The_Classical_Journal ↩

  2. Reiner, David; Anick, Peter (1989). Mel Bay's Old-Time Fiddling Across America. Mel Bay Publications, Inc. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-7866-5381-2. Double shuffle: syncopated string crossing on a chord, with the top note changing. 978-0-7866-5381-2 ↩

  3. Harris, Rodger (2009). "Fiddling". Okhistory.org. The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved 2017-04-07. http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=FI001 ↩

  4. "Alison Krauss - The bluegrass rose blooms | No Depression". 29 December 2016. Archived from the original on 2016-12-29. Retrieved 21 April 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20161229100342/http://nodepression.com/article/alison-krauss-bluegrass-rose-blooms ↩

  5. "fiddle". Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 March 2009. /wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica ↩

  6. Baines, Anthony (November 12, 1992). The Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments. Oxford University Press USA. /wiki/Oxford_University_Press ↩

  7. "fiddle". Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 March 2009. /wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica ↩

  8. Deverich, Robin Kay (2006). "Historical Background of the Violin". ViolinOnline.com. Retrieved 2006-09-22. http://www.violinonline.com/historicalbackgroundoftheviolin.htm ↩

  9. Bartruff, William. "The History of the Violin". Archived from the original on 2007-02-08. Retrieved 2006-09-22. https://web.archive.org/web/20070208112530/http://www.bartruff.com/history.php ↩

  10. Diana Poulton (1984). "Viol". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. pp. 736–741. Volume 3. ↩

  11. "fiddle". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2008-03-28. The ultimate origin is obscure. The [Teutonic] word bears a singular resemblance in sound to its [medieval Latin] synonym vitula, vidula, whence [Old French] viole, Pr. viula, and (by adoption from these [languages]) [Italian], [Spanish], [Portuguese] viola: see [viol]. The supposition that the early [Romance] vidula was adopted independently in more than one [Teutonic language] would account adequately for all the [Teutonic] forms; on the other hand, *fiÞulôn- may be an [Old Teutonic] word of native etymology, although no satisfactory [Teutonic] derivation has been found. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?q=fiddle ↩

  12. "Bosworth and Toller". Germanic Lexicon Project. Archived from the original on 2013-10-23. Retrieved 2012-04-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20131023060800/http://web.ff.cuni.cz/cgi-bin/uaa_slovnik/gmc_search_v3?cmd=formquery2&query=fiddle&startrow=1 ↩

  13. Mario Pei, The Story of the English Language (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), p. 109. /wiki/Mario_Pei ↩

  14. Weinfield, Elizabeth. "The Viol". The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 2018-04-09. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/viol/hd_viol.htm ↩

  15. "The Session: Sessions". Retrieved 28 August 2006. https://www.thesession.org/sessions/index.php ↩

  16. Webster, Andy (16 March 2012). "Traditional Irish Music in New York City". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 February 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/arts/music/traditional-irish-music-in-new-york-city.html ↩

  17. Harris, Rodger (2009). "Fiddling". Okhistory.org. The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved 2017-04-07. http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=FI001 ↩

  18. "Amelia Kaminski Productions". Willockandsaxgallery.com. Archived from the original on 2011-11-12. Retrieved 2011-11-14. https://web.archive.org/web/20111112125429/http://www.willockandsaxgallery.com/kaminski.htm ↩

  19. "Fire & Grace". Culburnie.com. Archived from the original on 2011-09-28. Retrieved 2011-11-14. https://web.archive.org/web/20110928193410/http://www.culburnie.com/albums/AlasdairFraser/fire_and_grace.htm ↩

  20. "The Wilds". Tim Macdonald and Jeremy Ward. 2017-11-15. Retrieved 2018-08-24. http://www.timandjeremy.com/wilds ↩

  21. Gilchrist, Anne Geddes. "Some Old Lake Country Fiddlers and their Tune Books". http://www.cpartington.plus.com/Links/Irwin/Lake%20District%20Fiddlers.html ↩

  22. Joseph Lyons. "Scottish Fiddle Music". Scotlandsmusic.com. Archived from the original on 2012-04-19. Retrieved 2012-04-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20120419115950/http://www.scotlandsmusic.com/Home/scottish-fiddle.htm ↩

  23. "Regional Irish Fiddle Styles". Irishfiddle.com. Archived from the original on 2012-04-23. Retrieved 2012-04-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20120423204037/http://www.irishfiddle.com/article_on_styles1.html ↩

  24. "Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Fiddle". Fiddlingaround.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-11-14. http://www.fiddlingaround.co.uk/med/Med+mid%20frame.html ↩

  25. "Klezmer Fiddle". Fiddlingaround.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-11-14. http://www.fiddlingaround.co.uk/klezmer/Klezmer%20frame.html ↩

  26. "East European and Gypsy Fiddle". Fiddlingaround.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-11-14. http://www.fiddlingaround.co.uk/easterneurope/Easterneurope%20frame.html ↩

  27. Harris, Rodger (2009). "Fiddling". Okhistory.org. The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved 2017-04-07. http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=FI001 ↩

  28. Harris, Rodger (2009). "Fiddling". Okhistory.org. The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved 2017-04-07. http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=FI001 ↩

  29. "Gu-Achi Fiddlers - Old Time O'odham Fiddle Music (CR-8082)". Store.canyonrecords.com. Archived from the original on 2012-08-03. Retrieved 2012-08-03. https://web.archive.org/web/20120803000540/http://store.canyonrecords.com/index.php?app=ecom&ns=prodshow&ref=CR-8082 ↩

  30. "Western Swing Fiddle". Fiddlingaround.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-11-14. http://www.fiddlingaround.co.uk/westernswing/wswingframe.html ↩

  31. "Jackson School of International Studies - Canadian Studies Center". Jsis.washington.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-10-23. Retrieved 2012-08-03. https://web.archive.org/web/20131023062109/http://jsis.washington.edu/canada/collections/metis2.shtml ↩