Fiddle vs violin?
Fiddle vs violin — you might be wondering which you should learn.
Well, the good news is that the fiddle and the violin are actually the same exact instrument. The difference is the style of music played on them.
What this means is that if you make sure that you learn a good solid technique, it will serve you whether you want to play classical music, or jazz, or blues, or rock or Irish traditional music or bluegrass. As well as many other styles.
Generally when we talk about classical music we refer to a ‘violin’; and when we are talking about folk music we tend to call it a fiddle. But it is all to do with the style of music, rather than the instrument itself.

Both the fiddle and the violin are normally 4 string instruments that are generally played with a bow. However, it is possible to have 5 strings, or sometime more!
The tuning of the strings for playing most ‘violin’ music is for the strings to be tuned in 5ths — G, D, A, E. More information of violin and fiddle tuning on this page.
However, for fiddle music — especially bluegrass, old time, Scandinavian folk and other styles — other tunings can be used. For example, in American Old Time music the fiddle is often tuned to A, E, A, E.
Fiddle and violin technique
If you are interested in learning to play either the violin or the fiddle, it is important to learn a good basic technique.
I recommend that you make sure you develop a good posture, and solid bowing technique and good left-hand position regardless of whether you want to learn to play classical violin or folk fiddle.
You can always adapt your technique as you decide what style of music you eventually want to play.
First you should learn a good playing technique, with a good tone and corrrect intonation (playing ‘in tune’). Once you have this, then you can start to specialise in the technique specific to either fiddle or violin playing (for example vibrato, ornametation, chords etc).
So, when it comes to the decision ‘fiddle vs violin’, you don’t really need to decide straight away!
If you are just starting out playing either the violin or fiddle, take a look at my page How to play the fiddle.
Fiddle players, if you would like to take your fiddle playing to the next level, take a look at my online fiddle courses, including my free Irish fiddle course.