![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pnwfolklore.org\/ViolinFairfaxStew.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
When someone asks me how long I have played the violin, I tell them about seventy years. But that’s not true. That includes about forty-five years that I didn\u2019t play at all. About twenty years ago I started playing again, this time the fiddle and not the violin. Much of what I had learned as a kid came back to me, but then I had to learn all those tunes. Learning to play the fiddle (or violin) is really a life-long process; one never arrives at the final destination, but it is the journey that makes it worthwhile.
\n
\nMy story should begin a few generations earlier. I have a picture of my father at age twelve standing in front of his house in rural western Wisconsin, dressed in knickers and playing the violin. He never became much of a player, I only remember him playing once or twice when I was young, but he told me that his maternal grandfather, a Norwegian immigrant who lived to the grand age of 102, played the violin. I don\u2019t know what kind of music he played, whether Scandinavian dance tunes or something more classical, but I like to think I inherited some of his musical genes.<\/p>\n
When I was seven I showed an interest in music, and after a year of piano I started violin with my first three-quarter-size instrument. A few years later my dad bought a full-size violin, which I then began to play. I continued classical violin, competing with my friend for first chair in the school orchestra, until I regretfully gave it up in high school for a guitar and singing.<\/p>\n
And then there are the fiddles in my life. I have had about five different violins at various times, and still have two. As a fiddle player I am often asked the difference between a fiddle and a violin. The answer is both simple and complex. The simple answer is that they are the same instrument. The complex answer is in the way the instrument is played. A violin player usually plays highly structured classical music, while a fiddle player plays in a much freer traditional folk style. I prefer the latter but still appreciate the former.<\/p>\n
Here are some favorite fiddle quotes<\/strong>:<\/p>\n “We do not quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing.”<\/em> “We consider that the man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia reels without losing his grip, may be depended upon in any kind of emergency.”<\/em> “Fiddlers just want to have fun!” “I don’t want talking, I want fiddling!”<\/em> “Get up, Kate. We can make more money plowing than we can playing the fiddle.”<\/em> “The music comes from the fiddler’s heart, through his strings and straight into your heart.”<\/em> \u201cIt was hard for the pioneers, but every now and again someone would get out the fiddle and make it all worse.\u201d And songs<\/strong>:<\/p>\n EDGAR, by Pam Ayres<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u00a0<\/em>Oliver Wendell Holmes<\/p>\n
\nMark Twain – Letter to Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, January 1863<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Stacy Phillips<\/p>\n
\nLuther Davis<\/p>\n
\nJohn Morgan Salyer<\/p>\n
\nFather John Angus Rankin, Cape Breton musician<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Anonymous<\/p>\n