So, I’d like to play irish traditional music with a fiddle.
But I also want to be able to play classical (since I enjoy that too).
Something tells me that it’s better to learn a classical violin-playing, and from that proceed to fiddling. Maybe not better for the fiddling, but the best compromise, since if I started with fiddling instantly I would have no chance when it comes to classical.
So what I’m saying is that classical probably is more versatile?
Any truth in that?
I know there are people here far more qualified to answer this, but I’ll give my 2 cents for what it’s worth.
I have a classical background, both instrumentally and vocally. When I started to play whistle, and now fiddle, I found it more difficult to play correctly because of my classical background. For me, I was to play those dots on the sheet music, and nothing more. No improvisation, no deviation. It was how I was taught…you just didn’t do it. Because of this, I’ve had a hard time (anyone who has sat with me to play whistle can attest to this). The “deviations”, so to speak, which make the music “Irish” or whatever were alien to me, and I’ve had a hard time incorporating them in. Folk music tends to be much more laid back than classical, and I think it’s that laid back-ness that makes it harder for me to play at times. Because of this, I think I would have had an easier time had learned it all in the other order. I would have learned mechanics with fiddle, that could have readily been passed on to violin, and the rest would have just fallen into place. At least, I think. But in the end, this is just speculation on my part, based on my personal experience. II wish I had learned folk rather than classical. I don’t think playing anything classical is going to be difficult for me…once I get the whole fiddle thing down, at least (damn bowing… 
).
I will second that motion. I am largely self taught in a folk-esque fashion on all my instruments. I’m also in classical music school now, so it didn’t ruin my music education. Sure, I have to deal with my professor occasionally correcting hand positions and the like, but I have certain advantages that my peers do not. Namely improvisation technique and the ability to play in pretty much any style of music. I don’t play fiddle myself (I’m a double bass major) but I do know a few violinists who started out fiddling, but I don’t know as many violinists who have had an easy time fiddling.
EDIT: I just realized, right after saying I didn’t play fiddle, that my display picture is of me playing fiddle. I do play a bit, but I would hardly call myself competent at it.
I meet a lot of Classically trained violinists at fiddle workshops (dealing with a multiple of fiddle styles).
They might come in with sheet music and ask what they’re doing wrong but as soon as the teacher gets them to put the printed music away and play what they hear, they seem to pick things up really fast and have a surprisingly easy time of it.
Okay, bit of conflicting posts here. Don’t know what to think. 
To me, it sounds logical that the classical techniques should be more versatile. Since classical music is so varied and dynamic. If one can play Paganini and Bach, Morrison’s Jig shouldn’t be so hard…
And anyway, I play guitar, whistle and mandolin too. Improvise is what I do mostly. So I’m more worried about correct posture and other technique, rather than feeling and improvisation.
In my experience, unless a fiddle teacher has some Classical training there’s a big chance posture and adherence to Classical technique isn’t going to be high on their value chart.
I’ve had a couple workshop teachers who started out as fiddlers and then got some Classical training 1) so they knew the terminology to explain themselves 2) discovered they were acquiring an occupational injury from playing the fiddle and wanted to correct the matter before it became permanent.
When I first bought my violin (about 22 years before I approached it as a fiddler) I took lessons from a Classically trained violinist whose specialty was Baroque music. I studied from her for a year before putting it away those 22 years.
There’s a story.
The shortest one is that it was god awful tedious, my eyes were always glued to the printed page, and six weeks into returning to the violin as a fiddle I was as far along as I had been at the end of that first year.
Since picking up the violin as a fiddle I have not once practiced scales.
All my practice is work done within fiddle tunes, mostly by ear.
Periodically I’ll take a lesson with fiddlers who have studied Classic violin for proper posture and bow usage but never once have any of those fiddlers suggested I practice scales
or attempt to learn tunes from print.
I agree with your views on reading notes and systematically practicing scales.
I will focus mainly on irish traditional in my playing, but I just want to have options if I sometime want to play classical, or other styles of fiddling.
And in this case, it seems to me that classical techniques are better to learn from the beginning?
There’s something else to it that’s bigger than the scales and reading the dots. You have to feel the heart and soul of any musical form to play it correctly. The idea that Bach and Vivaldi are captured perfectly on sheet music is silly. The sheets don’t represent the heart of classical music any more than in any other form. You have to feel ITM to play it just as you have to feel Bach to play it. One style doesn’t preclude the other, it’s our perceptions and interpretations that do. There may be clasical plaeyrs that find themselve helpless without sheet music, but that’s their own self-imposed limit, not the music’s.
There’s something else to it that’s bigger than the scales and reading the dots. You have to feel the heart and soul of any musical form to play it correctly. The idea that Bach and Vivaldi are captured perfectly on sheet music is silly. The sheets don’t represent the heart of classical music any more than in any other form. You have to feel ITM to play it just as you have to feel Bach to play it. One style doesn’t preclude the other, it’s our perceptions and interpretations that do. There may be clasical plaeyrs that find themselve helpless without sheet music, but that’s their own self-imposed limit, not the music’s.
Well, what can I say? I totally agree with you.
If I gave the impression I was blaming the music, I apologise. I was taught that you only play what is written on the sheet music. Nothing more, nothing less. To go away from that was to basically not play the piece in the way it was intended, and therefore you weren’t playing it correctly. Because of this, I did have a very difficult time weaning myself away from the sheet music when I did start playing ITM, and “feeling” the music was extremely foreign. I’m sure that this is not the experience of every classical musician out there (when you watch classical violinists play, they really do seem to be one with the music)…I was just relating my own experiences. And yes, it is very much my own, self-imposed limit…and one I work on constantly.
Gee, if I though anyone would quote me I’d have spelled more carefully. 
No, of course you’re correct. In the classical forms one plays only what’s written. If there’s an ornament to be played, it’s indicated on the sheet. The job of the classical player is to execute every note and no more; there aren’t any added notes and there is practically no room for improvisation. But that’s the nature of that musical form, while in ITM much of the feel of the music is expressed through ornamentation, which is itself a kind of improvisation since it’s largely left to the musician’s interpretation. When we critique ITM we’re often looking at the effectiveness and choice of ornamentation.
But in the same way we can have two orchestras under two conductors play the same classical piece and yet have it sound different. If classical playing was simply the robotic reproduction of a fixed series of notes that wouldn’t happen. Classical players would be little more than living CD players. The art of interpretation - the feel of classical music - is still there, but it’s just expressed differently. That difference doesn’t mean a musician cant be perfectly skilled at both, although many claim to have a hard time making the switch. But that, of course, is the individual musician, not the music.
Classical and traditional music are very different. You cannot play traditional music convincingly using only classical techniques. And if you immerse yourself in those techniques only, it can be very difficult to break away from them. Think of the way people who learn a new language later in life have such a hard time with foreign sounds, and often aren’t even able to hear the difference between their flawed attempts and the correct pronunciation. The same happens to classical musicians who think they can play traditional tunes just because the notes are easy. You find many classically trained musicians who release “folk” albums or instructional materials, and the way they play is not reflective of traditional feel or technique at all. The reverse is surely true as well, but it’s not common that a traditional musician feels they’d be adept at classical with no further training.
Those who can pull off both styles are pretty rare, and work hard at both. Surely the complexity of the arangements in classical music is higher, and the technique is more precise and regimented. But the subtleties that make tradtional music work are much harder to pin down, and can be very elusive. Most people find one or the other approach fits their own aptitudes much better (and it may not be the one they most like to listen to).
I see.
But for me, I just want some basic classical techniques, mostly for ergonomical reasons.
You know, bow-hold, bowing, fingering, stance and violin position.
Not several years of intense classical practice and getting used to classical music (thus getting an “accent”).
I’d rather play folk music in a good way, than classical in a good way. But I want to be able to play some classical works, but not necessarily like a concert violinist., or even near that good.
Please correct me if it is a bad idea.
No, not a bit.
In fact it probably doesn’t matter for the first several months/ couple of years/ several years what your goals to eventually sound like are.
For those first what evers of time everybody sounds pretty wretched on the violin/fiddle, especially if you play other instruments fairly well. Your ear will be more critical.
That’s a good thing.
The important thing is that you don’t get any bad habits that might cause you an occupational injury down the road.
Right, then it’s settled.
I’ll go for a classical approach the first years!
Thanks for clearing that out for me. 
But in the same way we can have two orchestras under two conductors play the same classical piece and yet have it sound different. If classical playing was simply the robotic reproduction of a fixed series of notes that wouldn’t happen. Classical players would be little more than living CD players.
I agree…it is always interesting to see how each conductor interprets the same piece. Whether in terms of “extras” or even tempo. I’ve heard Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture played with a slower tempo or a faster one, depending upon who is doing the conducting.
Of course, this is the most important thing of all. And I do agree that you can do that either way, provided you have a decent instructor. I wonder if in most cases it would be better to have a classical violin instructor for the basics? Not across the board, of course, but in general? This is just me musing, though…take it for what it’s worth in based on that
Just remember to tell who ever you study with that you like the Irish stuff, never be hesitant to request tunes you want to learn (to supplement what ever material the teacher suggests), and when you do request specific tunes, ask if they can be taught you by aural methods instead of “from the dots” (from printed music).
When I was first learning fiddle my fiddle teachers taught me very simple fiddle tunes to learn the strings and intervals. I would record them playing the tune slow and fast for my practice at home.
I’ve seen a lot of self taught and fiddler taught fiddlers who have dang nasty posture that not only is going that cause them painful health problems down the road but they’ll probably never get speed or much intonation skill either.
Its sad when you meet a fiddler who is very good in spite of those bad habits. Their career is usually short and full of pain (and surgery).
The only down side I see with Classic violin instruction is all the time spent not only doing scales, but doing scales in keys that aren’t commonly used in most fiddle tunes.
I suppose if I ever branch out to Klezmer, Gypsy jazz, or Bluegrass my opinion on that would change but I recall taking a music theory class and realizing at the time that I usually play the fiddle as if it was diatonic, like a whistle.
Any hoot,
since the Suzuki method has become popular Classic violin instruction has taken on a whole new meaning.
I am very lucky to have an instructor who teaches fiddle via the Suzuki method…with the emphasis being on Irish fiddle, since that is what I prefer. I am self taught on whistle, but I cannot imagine trying to be self taught on fiddle (at least for me…I know some have been able to do it). Having someone watch me play who knows what to look for has been invaluable for me. She also lets me play what I want (I bring her new music quite often, and tell her I’d like to play it along with what she is teaching at the time), and she encourages me to deviate. She knows how hard it is for me, so she’ll frequently add things to the music just to keep me on my toes.
But anyway, I’ve deviated from the topic a bit…this is really an interesting conversation, even with the little tangents that have developed.