Fiddle sheet music

What actually differs from violin music

Fiddle tunes are printed as bare melodies. What makes them sound like the tradition rather than like a violin exercise — the rolls, cuts, drones and bowing patterns — is usually not written down, because it varies by region, by player and by night.

Editions that do notate ornamentation are teaching editions and are worth having if you are learning a style rather than a tune. A plain collection is more useful once you know how the music goes.

Regional styles are different repertoires

Irish, Scottish, Old-Time, Bluegrass, Cape Breton, Québécois and Scandinavian fiddling share instruments and almost nothing else — different tunes, different bowing, different ornaments, and in some cases different tunings. A collection labelled simply "fiddle tunes" will lean towards one of them, usually Irish or Old-Time, and the cover does not always say which.

Cross-tuning

Some Old-Time repertoire is played in cross-tuning (also called scordatura): the strings are retuned, most often to AEAE or ADAE, so that drones ring. A tune written for cross-tuning is playable in standard tuning but loses the effect it was written for. Good editions name the tuning at the head of the tune.