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In the section that breaks down (no pun intended) the styles of fiddling in Eastern Canada, a number of un-sourced (and I would contend un-true) statments are made. I would advocate that these be fixed with attribution to references, or removed entirely. In specific, I refer to:

• Cape Breton fiddling, with a distinct Scottish and Acadian influenceThe reference below to Acadian fiddling states that it has "similarities to Cape Breton fiddling". This seems like circular logic, and doesn't contribute to any advancement of knowledge.
• French-Canadian fiddling, influenced from the Brittany area of northern FranceHighly doubtful. Classic Breton styles, such as thegavotte, are not part of the French-Canadian repertoire. Much of the music tradition of Quebec, and by extension, the rest of French speaking Canada (with the exception of Acadia) stems more from Normandy and Dauphiné regions, then Brittany. As for the fiddling specifically, heavy Irish and Scottish influences (reels - called "une rile" and jigs) supplement the rigodons and other traditional French music genres
• Métis fiddling, of central and western Canada, with French influence
• Newfoundland and Labrador fiddling, with a strong Irish Sliabh Luachra style of playing
• Maritimes, Acadian or Downeast style of fiddling which has many similarities to Cape Breton fiddlingFirst, Maritime and Acadian shouldn't be used interchangeably. The Maritimes as a region has various styles, largely depending on history of settlement. Cape Breton style is overwhelmingly Scottish. However, there are long-standing pockets of Irish style. These two genres heavily influenced the Acadian style, but the Irish or Scottish mix with the French style varies by region, depending which group was closer to the Acadian settlement. As a result, Cape Breton Acadian fiddlers play more Scottish-influenced styles than Peninsula Acadians, who would have been more influenced by the large Irish settlements of the Miramichi and the Chaleur coast. However, there is another entirely different and non-Celtic tradition of fiddling in the Maritimes, often referred to as "Old Time" (or even "Down east" or "down home", which most likely has its roots withLoyalist settlement (a certain resemblance to Appalachian styles would corroborate different brancheson a common evolutionary tree), and is more derived from English music traditions.Don Messer, the renown New Brunswick fiddler would fall in this style/category. Rhythms such as quick-steps, waltzes and breakdowns are more common, and even jigs have a different feel.
• English-Canadian fiddling or Anglo-Canadian fiddling, which is a combination of English, Scottish, Irish, French, Ukrainian and German fiddling stylesI think this is too broad, and would need to be broken down by region

This is a tonne of information I have learned through osmosis over the years, by being from the region, and my family being of a variety of the aforementioned backgrounds. I can play you the difference in styles, but unfortunately, I don't have the written resources to reference this. I hope that anyone who might be able to contribute will.—Precedingunsigned comment added byZapallon (talk •contribs)16:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This seems as if some overzealous editor removed any reference to the fact that the term is generally associated more with popular music forms than with orchestral music. I'm no expert so I won't try to fix this - certainly, the word is used in classical music, but as far as I can tell that is not where the word is most at home. Please fix.190.149.80.4 (talk)23:48, 15 January 2010 (UTC)◌[reply]

Yeah, I don't get this either. The first three sentences of the article contradict each other. Is it the same as a violin, most often a violin, or similar to the violin? Someone needs to clarify this stat.Ari1891adler (talk)16:29, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The actual sentences do not contradict each other, and I've added a bit to the "essentially synonymous" one. If you haven't already done so, please become familiar with the contents of the rest of this talk page. If you have specific suggestions for clarification, I'm all ears.Just plain Bill (talk)19:06, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

From what I can see, the distinction is still not clear. A violin with a slightly different bridge is still a violin. Raising or lowering the action of an instrument (which is what changing the shape of the bridge would do), is a matter of preference for the player. It doesn't change the nature of the instrument itself. A guitar with light gauge metal strings and a low action is preferred by a lot of blues players, while a guitar with heavier gauge nylon strings and a higher action is often preferred by classical guitar players. Nonetheless, they are still the same instrument.108.26.206.187 (talk)00:15, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Fiddle" and "violin" simply come to English via 2 different paths (Germanic languages and Italian respectively). Classism determines which is used when: they're called "violins" when they're used to play music to be passively listened to by people in expensive clothing, but "fiddles" when used by working-class people to play music for dancing. But the instruments themselves are not significantly different in construction (the Hardingfele's drone strings notwithstanding).

I don't have the time to go through and make all the necessary corrections or even note them here, but I certainly hope someone does!—Precedingunsigned comment added by68.239.11.217 (talk)00:23, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, I would go the other way - a violin is merely one (the most common) type of fiddle. Some other types are superficiallys imiler e.g. haardanger fiddle; some are visually very different e.g. crwth. There are many kinds of fiddle from all over the world sich as spike fiddles in the East. So I would say the article needs expanded to become more diverse.StrumStrumAndBeHanged (talk)18:15, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is hard to know where to begin. FOr one thing, a history of viol instruments is not "fiddle". Fiddle is fiddle, violin is violin, viola de gamba is viola de gamba. We do not have articles about australopithecus talk about the dinosaurs, we do not have articles about amino acids talk at great length about nitrogen's atomic structure. AThe article on "Z" does not dwell at length on the letter "B". Etc. "Fiddle" is not a synonym for "violin".— Precedingunsigned comment added byGeofferybard (talk •contribs)

Could you please tell me how to distinguish between a fiddle and a violin just by looking at them?— Precedingunsigned comment added by148.87.19.198 (talk)22:30, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A fiddle has a less pronounced arch in the bridge, thus the strings are "flatter" across the space where they are played, and therefore a fiddler may play three or more strings simultaneously where a violinist could not. It may not be a simple distinction to the eye (although it is visible on close examination), but it is a significant structural difference which provides a distinct difference in the manner of play and the range of sounds which can be produced.72.73.114.181 (talk)01:44, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a place to discussthis diff. For starters, all violins are fiddles, but not all fiddles are violins. The foremost difference between a violin and a fiddle is the attitude and style of the player. Generalizations about action height, bridge top curve, and tailpiece configuration are unsupportable and unencyclopedic. Many professionals do their fiddling on instruments set up to normal violin standards.

I doubt you could find a credibleorganologist who would deny that arebab is a spike fiddle. It most certainly is not "essentially a violin." __Just plain Bill (talk)20:54, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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The article title and the orientation of the article does not quite make sense.Fiddle is a synonym forviolin so, as titled, this article should redirect to theviolin article. But this article largely discusses the violin-based folk music traditions around the world. An appropriate name for that would befiddling. I propose that

1. Most content in this article about the instrument itself be merged intoviolin.
2. The remaining content about the music traditions be re-organized under the namefiddling (which is currently a redirect).

-- MC141.131.2.3 (talk)20:47, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, MC. Just to let you know, earlier this year it was discussed to merge Violin with Fiddlehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Violin#Merge_tag and the few interested in consensus agreed that the Violin article would become far too unwieldy. Also, there are other types of instruments called "fiddles" besides the one many people think of. As far as the playing of the fiddle(s), I agree to a certain extent that the folk music aspect of it is a larger part, but as the music created is made on fiddles, it's difficult to separate the two. I can see how a name change might be beneficial.LovelyLillith (talk)22:38, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If the scope of this article is limited to the modern anglosphere, then the great majority of fiddles are violins, or not much different from a modern standard violin. Even with such a limited scope, there are other fiddles, such as the cello in the Scottish traditional grouping of “wee fiddle and big fiddle” and the cigar-box fiddle sometimes used in the US old-time fiddling tradition. I’m not alone in having fiddled on a viola; it is possible to find books of fiddle tunes written in alto clef.

If the scope of the article is to include a global and historical view, then there are numerous examples of instruments which are fiddles, but not violins. Seerabeca anderhu.

With that in mind, the first sentence of the introduction, “Fiddle is another name for the bowed string musical instrument more often called a violin.” is incorrect, and contradicted by the cited reference. A better way of putting it will be something like “A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, often a violin.” which is consistent with the reference.Just plain Bill (talk)21:03, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What if the difference was, that Django R. could dance while fiddling, but not while using a violin? I once watched some guy not quite 80 years of age doing that trick.— Precedingunsigned comment added by2001:4DD7:D7B5:0:515A:EB32:B765:E5D4 (talk)01:31, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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I was personally taught in orchestra class that the word fiddle can be used as slang for a violin but that a true fiddle has five strings. Four come from the violin and the fifth is from the viola. Also all the mediocre and better violin players in our moderately sized city of Columbus, Indiana had fine tuners on ALL their strings. And our local symphonies and orchestras violin players used them on all four strings as well. And that was 20 years ago!Alys Flux (talk)11:27, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The lead of this story violatesWP:MOSLEAD. I've never seen a Wikipedia article that starts by defining a word that isn't the subject of the article. I realize there's been debate about moving some of the article and that this was voted down. I also understand there's resistance to putting the definition offiddle first (as I recently attempted and was reverted). However, these two decisions-by-consensus contradict each other, and this contradiction should be resolved. Regardless of the subject or the contents, it's most important to followWP:MOSLEAD and start the article by defining its subject, as all other Wikipedia articles do (that I'm aware of). Seriously, if you wanted to learn whatFish are, wouldn't it be unhelpful if the article started off, "Fishing is the act of..."? Because that's exactly what happened to me — I wanted to learn what a fiddle is, not learn what fiddling is.-Jordgette[talk]20:04, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If there is no discussion on this topic (the D inWP:BRD), I am going to change the first part of the hatnote to, "This article is about the musical instrument and its playing styles. For more, seeViolin" and switch the sentence "Fiddling refers to the act of playing the fiddle, and fiddlers are musicians that play it" to the start of the lead's 2nd paragraph, which is actually about fiddling. Whereas the first paragraph almost exclusively concerns the instrument. It's most important to remove the confusion from the first sentence of the lead (as well as the hatnote); the article name (fiddle vs. fiddling) is less important.-Jordgette[talk]15:18, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That seems sensible. I would lose the "refers to" and simply say "Fiddling is the act of playing..."Just plain Bill (talk)16:04, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirectFiddle and violin and has thus listed itfor discussion. This discussion will occur atWikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 May 8#Fiddle and violin until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.Steel1943 (talk)07:31, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirectVioloneux and has thus listed itfor discussion. This discussion will occur atWikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 May 8#Violoneux until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.Steel1943 (talk)07:41, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Some things just grow during incremental edits and sometimes get out of hand. The "External links" section, one of the optional appendices, was expanded to 6 entries. Three seems to be an acceptable number, and of course, everyone has their favorite to try to add for a fourth.Consensus needs to determine this. A tag indicates concerns.

However, none is needed for article promotion.

Some links may be included inWP:ELNO, orWhat Wikipedia is not (policy) such asWP:NOTREPOSITORY orWP:NOTGUIDE.

• WP:ELDEAD may apply.
• In some casesELCITE applies:Do not use{{cite web}} or other citation templates in the External links section. Citation templates are permitted in the Further reading section. Others, listed below:
• ELpoints #3) states:Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum. A lack of external links or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links.
• LINKFARM states:There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to the external links section of an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. On articles about topics with many fansites, for example, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate.
• ELMIN:Minimize the number of links.

TheExternal links guidelineThis page in a nutshell:External links in an article can be helpful to the reader, but they should be kept minimal, meritable, and directly relevant to the article. With rare exceptions, external links should not be used in the body of an article.

Second paragraph,acceptable external links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy.

• • Please also note:
• WP:ELBURDEN:Disputed links should be excluded by default unless and until there is a consensus to include them. Please do not add back more links without consensus. Simple solution to facilitate career maintenance tag. Move links here for discussion.

Moved links:

• Polish Fiddles -mazanki,złóbcoki
• Złóbcoki (fiddles) - “Instruments with Soul” documentary
• Violoneux.fr, background information on fiddlers of different French regions in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In French. --Otr500 (talk)04:34, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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