Tips On Holding the Fiddle Properly for Beginners

Video Transcript

Hi! I’m David Kaynor for expertvillage.com, and now in a somewhat inexpert way I’m going to demonstrate an alternative way of holding the violin for playing fiddle music. Old square dance callers and some people who sang along with their playing would hold their violin down on their chest rather than under their chin for a couple of reasons. One is that I think they can actually see their fingers better, and for another it’s just easier to talk and sing to the extent that one can with the fiddle down on the chest. I’m not accustomed to this, so I’m making it up as I go, but a square dance caller sing, “first couple down the center separate between the opposite two” and do some sort of version of the golden slippers holding the violin down here. And I think this was seen in dances in the South, and in a lot of rural areas this was a very popular way to hold the fiddle. And as I say it’s not my accustomed way, so I’m not going to attempt to do a whole piece like this, but I wanted to just make note of it because it is part of the fiddle tradition.

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