July 10, 2023 - So, what is the difference between this musical instrument of four strings called either a violin or a fiddle? They appear to be identical in physical appearance, and they sound the same regardless of whether being played by a male or female, professional musician, or an amateur. There is a musician’s joke that appears to give us a clue to the question.
Question: “What’s the difference between a fiddle and a violin?”
Answer: “You don’t spill beer on a violin.”
Now, the real answer is slightly more complicated, but that joke just about sums it up – a violin is “fancy”, and a fiddle is “folksy”. Other than that, they are pretty much the same instrument.
Generally speaking, the main thing that makes a fiddle a fiddle and a violin a violin is the type of music that is played on it. As an example, the instrument played by noted violinist Itzhak Perlman, would be composition based music. He would make sure to play each musical composition exactly as intended by the writer, note for note, rest for rest, time signature for time signature, as close to perfection as possible.
On the other hand, popular musician Charlie Daniels will play music from the country/western genre, including bluegrass or music that he has composed himself. If he were to play the same tune three times in a row each one would be slightly different because he plays from the heart and not the printed music.
Another difference in the instruments is probably the cost. This is like saying that there is a difference between a “cup of joe” and a café latte. There is no difference except the café latte cost about $3.00 more. Likewise, there is no difference between a violin and a fiddle, except that the violin costs a lot more money. Both a violin and fiddle have six letters, and both refer to roughly the same musical instrument. Both can be used as a ping pong paddle, or to row a boat. Both have strings tuned to the same notes in perfect fifths, G, D, A, and E.
In some cases, the fiddlers lower the bridge on their instrument. The bridge is a small piece of wood that holds the strings up off the instrument’s body. When lowered slightly, it allows the bow to strike two strings at the same time which is desirable in some country/western genres. It should be noted that a violin is primarily a noun, and it has only one meaning, which is the instrument itself. A fiddle is both a noun and a verb – “don’t fiddle around with that vase because you could break it”. You never hear anyone say, “Don’t violin around with that vase.”
The common thinking is that fiddles are simply cheap violins. At one time this could have been true as poorer or rural folk usually played home-made fiddles. They were less likely to afford private lessons, but learned traditional tunes at jams and hoedowns. Since many fiddlers back then did not take violin lessons, most could not read music and played everything by ear, whereas violinists could read music but could not normally improvise. It seems that the violin/fiddle gap has narrowed considerably in the past few years. It used to be that violins were stored in wooden cases, while fiddles were kept in an old pillow case under the bed.
As Bob Newhart once said, “I don’t like country music. I don’t mean to denigrate those who do like country music. And for those of you who like country music, ‘denigrate’ means to put down.” Nothing clears up this kind of doubts better than Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s
Dictionary: “Fiddle, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse’s tail on the entrails of a cat.”
Funny enough, it suits the noun “violin” just as well.
