Playing Fiddle

I own 4 fiddles at the moment. (Brian, if you find this, do NOT tell me about the next one I need!)

I started playing fiddle on my grandmother’s old violin. And I love it! I will never get rid of it just because of that connection. I never heard her play but gather she and her sister learned violin and mandolin in the early 1900’s. I wish I had my great aunt’s mandolin as well but that has gone somehow.

Anyway, I started playing on this fiddle and it’s nothing special physically but has the emotional connection. After I’d been playing a bit I picked up a Gotz, which is about as old as I am. It is sweet. Has a different feel and a very different tone than my Grandma’s violin. I then designated my grandmother’s violin as the GDGD fiddle, since I was getting into cross-tuning. And it sounds much better in GDGD than it did in standard.

My next purchase was a brand-new Chinese violin, a “beach fiddle” as they say. It was not expensive, but is decent. It’s a bit harsh to my ear, yet the more I play it the better it sounds. I think it needs breaking in. It’s now my “odd tuned” violin. Currently that means Calico (AEAC# see this minor list of tunings) but it changes periodically as I play with GDAD and others. I break more strings on that fiddle….

My favorite… hmmm and suddenly I hesitate to say fiddle… What is that emotional discordance between the words fiddle and violin? Anyway, my prize instrument, my favorite to play, was my recent Christmas present to myself, a 1926 (I think) Roth. It’s sweet. And the sweet spot of bowing, where it sounds good, is much broader than any of my other fiddles. I can play way up next to the bridge or go softer as I move down.

So now they hang on my wall, all tuned differently. (The Gotz has become my AEAE.)

When I pick one up, I feel the narrowness or thickness of the neck, the chin rest variations, the tuning pegs smoothness or stickiness, the spot where I should be bowing. They are all unique yet similar. My left hand adjusts somehow, despite the neck variations. I’m just now learning to play in 2nd and 3rd positions and there is a similarity somehow between shifting positions and playing on different violins. My left hand slides into nearly its place, then finds its place, and the fingers adjust and land where they ought. (Or nearly!) My right hand has a harder time adjusting where to bow on each but I’m working on that.

They’re all the same… yet uniquely different. Like having a conversation with different old friends. You talk/play, listen, adjust, feel, reach out, adjust, talk some more, adapting as you go. And the reward is a sweet conversation between your ear (or printed music) and your fingers and your bowing hand.