Many people wonder what the difference is between a violin and a fiddle. Actually, there really are two answers! The short answer is that today, the words fiddle and violin refer to the same instrument, but different styles and techniques of playing.
Generally, violin technique is used when playing classical music, or music that requires a classical, clean, rounded, or beautiful sound. Violin technique and style is the most versatile technique, and can actually be used also to play fiddle music.
Fiddle technique was developed by people who had violins, but had to teach themselves how to play, and the kind of music they wrote for the technique became known as fiddle music. Types of this music are Celtic music from Ireland and England, and Appalachian Bluegrass and Country music from America.
Fiddle technique usually meant resting the violin on the chest and holding the neck of the instrument between the thumb and side of the first finger. Since most times there were no other chordal instruments playing, the natural thing to do was to play two strings at a time (one an "open" string"), in order to provide a drone type accompaniment to the melody. With fiddle technique, it is very difficult to shift the left hand around to different positions, and so most things are played in first position, limiting the range of notes possible.
Advanced violin technique was developed beginning in the "Baroque" era of music around 1600, shortly after the invention of the true violin around 1550. By 1700, composers like Vivaldi and Bach were challenging violinists to move up and down the fingerboard, and to play double stops and complex bowing techniques that required a more efficient way of playing the instrument. That meant bringing the violin up to be held between the chin and the shoulder, so that the instrument could be held in place momentarily while the player shifted the position of the left hand up and down the fingerboard. The violin was usually played in the context of a group of other instruments, one of which was usually a chordal instrument like the lute or harpsichord, so it was not so important to fill out the harmony all by itself.
Like much of the English language, there developed two distinct ways of expression, derived from the two main roots of the language. For example, the English words pig, cow, and chicken come from the Germanic roots of English, and the words pork, beef, and poultry come from the Latin roots. They mean the same things, but are used in different situations!
It was customary that things referring to more cultured activities be assigned Latin root words, and the things more base or common be assigned Germanic rooted words.
The same is true for the fiddle and violin. Interestingly, the root of the Germanic rooted word "fiddle" did originally come from the SAME origin in Latin as the later adopted Latin rooted word "violin".
The origin of both words was the Latin word "Vitula". This was the name for a Roman goddess, and also the name of a lyre like string instrument. When this instrument was exported to Germany, the Germans called it "fidula" (V being pronounced F in German). This later became "Fiedel", and when exported to England eventually became "fiddle". After the introduction of the bowed rebec in the 11th century, the medieval fiddle was developed and became popular in England. The medieval fiddle was a close ancestor to the violin played with a bow and held on the shoulder (but kind of looked like a thin ukulele), and which probably did produce the first Celtic and popular "fiddle" music.
The word "Violin" developed via the southern route of Europe from the same word "Vitula". In Spain, the development of lutes led to the introduction of the "vihuela". If you add the "e" after the accented "u" as they naturally would have done in Spanish, you can see this is very close in pronunciation to "vitula". As these instruments were exported back to Italy and became bowed instruments, "vihuela" became "viola", and when the violin family was invented, from that came the root that was used for the words "violino" (little viol), "viola" (medium viol), and "violoncello" (big bass viol).
The violin proved to be a superior design to the fiddle, and eventually supplanted its use as an instrument when the price got low enough. Nevertheless, the soul of the fiddle lives on through the styles of fiddle music created by ordinary people who simply had a natural desire to express their lives in music.
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