When played as a folk instrument, the violin is ordinarily referred to in English as a fiddle.
One difference between "fiddles" and ordinary violins may be seen in American (e.g., bluegrass and old-time music) fiddling: in these styles, the bridge is sometimes shaved down so that it is slightly less curved. This reduces the range of motion needed for shuffle bowings which alternate between pairs of strings.
There is quite often only a single fiddle playing in any given venue, although twin fiddling is represented in some styles. By contrast, violins often play in sections, since sound reinforcement (before electronic amplification) was only possible by adding instruments. The Italian term ripieno may be translated as 'filling' (or "stuffing" in the culinary sense) since many instruments "fill out" the sound.
Read more about this topic: Violin Musical Styles
Famous quotes containing the word fiddle:
“Those who refuse to play second fiddle may wind up playing no fiddle at all.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“But there’s another knowledge that my heart destroys
As the fox in the old fable destroyed the Spartan boy’s
Because it proves that things both can and cannot be;
That the swordsmen and the ladies can still keep company;
Can pay the poet for a verse and hear the fiddle sound,
That I am still their servant though all are underground.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“If you love music, hear it; go to operas, concerts and pay fiddlers to play to you; but I insist on your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous, contemptible light.... Few things would mortify me more than to see you bearing a part in a concert, with a fiddle under your chin, or a pipe in your mouth.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)