TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Hello Swarb

A bit of an odd question but I was just curious really, what made you pick up the violin in the first place? Was it that you liked the instrument? Or you had admired someone else playing it? And as a kind related question have you ever been tempted to dabble in the 'darker arts' of the viola, cello etc

Thanks

Vikki xx

If you play the violin then i think you understand that its so much more than just a musical instrument.there is a touch of magic involved,thats why i suppose the instrument was banned by the church for a period as being the devils instrument.I n folklore you have jack Orion etc,also there is the mistique of the manufacture of them ,and the collosal expense of an old master.A good fiddle is alive and moves while you play it,it may be born from a tree planted a 1000 yrs ago. then there is the range of the thing, and the closeness of the sound to the human voice.most other instruments can be mastered in some degree or another.Not the fiddle, no matter how good you become , you know your limitations, and you know the possibilities that elude you.Once bitten there is nothing else you want to do with your life,they are addictive.

didnt answer the question , no I never wnted to play the viola, i have a baritone violin which i use from time to time,but i stick to the fiddle,  

I played the violin at school after having had piano lessons for 2 years. Having been at a posh school in Edinburgh it was mostly classical music apart from one year when my teacher gave me Kerr's Merry Melodies. For the uninitiated this is the bible (am I right Swarb?) of Scottish folk music and I learned such tunes as The Deil Among The Tailors and so many others I can't remember.

I always think it was such a shame that I hadn't been encouraged to play these great tunes as I remember actually enjoying playing (and practising) the violin for that year, away from classical music. As it was, when I left school I got a guitar and the violin went in the cupboard. But the guitar is a much sexier instrument to play when you're 18.

Being a pop music fan in the 70s I was into ELO and wanted a blue violin like Mik Kaminski played! Still love ELO.

niice one, go get yourself a brown fiddle and start again.maart allcock based the music book in my box set on Kerrs. its not the bible though there are much better collections, the Athole, for eg, mind you for the unitiated i would think your right, its v popular i believe.

The full size violin I got as a teenager - and still have - is a Skylark brand "Made in the People's Republic of China".

Nowadays every second thing you pick up is made in China but back in the 70s this was one exotic mutha! It has a really light shiney finish and stood out a mile from all the other fiddles in the school orchestra.

After the Grappelli gig the next fiddler who made me listen was the guy in the Levellers when I saw them doing The Devil Went down To Georgia, that great song by the Charlie Daniels Band.

The man who got me into listening to the fiddle was Steve Wickham of The Waterboys back in 1986 (I was a bit slow off the block!).

You heard his playing, Swarb?

Jules

Swarb

You have played Viola on some Fairport records, haven't you? Liege and Lief says you did - is that a viola on "Farewell, Farewell"?

Cheers

Jamie

yes i have heard him, and yes i did play viola on l and l

Were you ever classically trained?

I learnt at school but I didn't discover "fiddle" as opposed to classical violin until I had given up through frustration, completely demoralised.

However, even though I wasn't very good, I think the instrument leaves its mark on your soul.

I still have my violin - a Wolff Bros - but haven't played it properly for many, many years. Maybe I ought to get it out again.

had a bit of training but was given up on,mostly self taught,yes get it out of the loft and start again,
Skylark was a massed produced fiddle, v different from some chinese fiddled nowedays, i have one or two good ones, I have seen wolff bros fiddles too and they can often be good,sometimes they are german trade fiddles and i like them

It's magnificent how you still enthuse about an instrument - and this goes for lots of fiddle players. Once back in 199something I was offered a lift by Tom Leary back to Banbury where I was staying; he also dropped off Chris Leslie, this being after one of the first Feast Of Fiddles gigs. Nearly all the way from Nettlebed to Adderbury they talked fiddles; also their almost schoolboy-ish admiration for Peter Knight - who was and is a member of FoF - was, well, touching. The genuine enthousiasm for this instrument and players amazed me and I was happy just to eavesdrop in the back seat of Tom's car.
The same happened when Fairport played in Grolloo some years ago where I was living; I overheard some chat between Chris and Ric and they were talking fiddles, enthousiastically, and comparing them. They just do not stop talking fiddles. It must be maddening in a tour van (Simon?)  :P
But seriously, this love for one's instrument, even after so many years, is touching, and here I read it again.

Must say they LOOK great too. I have two on the wall here; one practise violin used by my late uncle when he was like 7 - we're talking early 1920s here; he didn't pursue it but always kept the instrument and when he passed away I didn't want to see that thing go; it intrigued me even as a kid visiting them how a sound can be produced from something like that. Possibly that practise fiddle which wasn't actually used after 1925 produces a horrible sound if any at all, but it's the idea that counts.
The other fiddle on the wall is a signed one by Swarb (merci bien, and much treasured).

I missed a wolff bow on ebay once when I was just starting to get into ebay and I regret not fighting for it.

I love my violin and will definitely give it another try. Some twit has badly revarnished the back at some time - which meant we got it half price since violins are valued as antiques rather than as instruments (or so I was told) No soul, antiques dealers  ;D

Sorry - i too could waffle on about about fiddles and fiddlers.  ;D (and mandolins)

no worries, me too, want to buy a smashing fiddle ,cheap   swarb

Oooooooooh yes please!  :o {:-)

Thought it looked familiar when I was having a look thru the boxed set at your gig in Kendal last year. You were trying hard to flog the boxed sets but I resisted tho I did buy the Live n Kicking cd, which is excellent by the way.

Trouble with boxed sets is that I find I rarely play em. Only got 2, one being RT's Life & Music which was a wedding prezzie. The book includes a lovely photo of a teenage Thompson with his first band featuring Hugh Cornwell on bass.

if you are serious i have an absolutelywonderful violin made in china, trust me they make the most wonderful instruments now ,all hand made,the equivalent by a europe maker would likely sell for £1500. this fiddle has been worked on ,with a neww bridge and pegs and has been played many times by myself and by peter Knight who thought its value would be £750 or more, to anyone intested with a cas and bow  not 750, not 730 not even 729  pounds to you one time only £650.  

I had to pass on your box when I last saw you play with Martin cos I didn't have the money on me, but I've bought it since, Swarb!   :)

Jules

Would you buy a used fiddle from this man?  ;)

Unfortunately my fiddle doesn't need replacing and I really can't warrant a second one, since I'm cr*p on this'n.

Shame.  ::)  ;D

I would...

If I had the money...

and...

If I could play!!

slowly slowly catchee monkey

I definately would if I had the money... don't you have any cheaper stuff to sell Swarb? Your socks? Coffee mug? lol... we are all skint here :P :D

Selling his socks? Now that would be a fiddle!  ;D

Only if he washes 'em before delivery.... ::)

how many socks, and what colour?

Surprise us...

Ahhh  I knew he would bite over the sock thing lol... I have you sussed Swarb :P

your kidding gower

Late to the party and not in the market for socks...just a word about violins.

There is (or was) a wonderful American duo called Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer. Tracy's still around; Dave died suddenly a few years ago.

I was fortunate enough to get to interview him, and he talked about Tracy's violin:



It was the first time I'd heard someone else talk about the magic in a violin (well, if you don't count Charlie Daniels in "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"!)...but not the first time I'd heard magic *from* a violin.

There is something sort of scary about them, or something unearthly.

Swarb, I just wonder how often you had to clean the ashes out of them back in your smoking days.

Puts me in mind of how Brian May made his famous Red Special out of wood from a fireplace. Maybe the unique sounds he gets out of it is actually the wood saying how it was quite happy being in a fireplace and doesn't much like being a guitar.

 :)

every other day, before the cops did!   (cleaning the ashes out)

Err bit of a late reply, I do play the fiddle, he's called Benji, he was a step up from my first fiddle (affectionately called 'the cardboard fiddle' which I still own but is on loan to a friend who wants to learn) and he makes me really happy. I do drool over the vintage violins that I see about but it seems that you pay a lot more for an instrument that's only a little better, so long may Benji reign  ;D


Vikki xx