Folk music is an aural tradition – learnt by ear rather than sheet music. Folk music is music of the people, and this means it is continually shaped by different people and in different places, rather than being fixed by composers working to the rules of Western classical music. While old recorded sources of tunes are a respected benchmark within Old-Time music, modern folk fiddlers will adapt these tunes and create their own; it is also common to add personal variations while playing, and to develop your own playing style which gives unique character to the tunes.
Music has for many thousands of years been learned purely through listening – without written music – in the same way that children learn to talk and understand grammar through listening. It is a language, which our pattern-learning brains are primed to learn. Listen to copious amounts of music, and our brains learn (subconsciously) to understand the music we enjoy.
So the most important learning you can do while learning folk fiddle is to listen as much as you can to the music you love. Over time your brain will learn to hear and understand subtleties in the rhythms, bowing and notes which just weren’t apparent to you at the start, and you will be able to pick out and remember an increasing number of phrases (licks) and tunes.
These days fiddles and violins are the same instrument. Although crude early fiddles predated the violin, the violin has been used by both fiddle and violin players since its design was perfected in Italy in the 1600s. These days fiddles tend to be cheaper than violins, chosen for their quick response and suitable for playing outside, while violins can be much finer with more complex, subtle tones. Otherwise the only physical differences between what we call fiddles and violins are in small adjustments made by players – such as the bridge (often flatter on fiddles, to enable use of drones), and strings (steel strings may be used by fiddlers, for their carrying power).
There are, however, key differences in the way that violinists and fiddlers play their instruments.
It has been said that violins sing while fiddles dance. The danceability in Appalachian or Old Time folk music is created through the combination of cross tuning, drones and a dancing bow, which together add subtle rhythmic layers to the tunes. In addition, Old Time music has inherent rhythmic patterns which add dance – such as African bell rhythms, brought to the music by African American banjo players.