Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music

by Vivian Wagner

Describes the author's passion for the fiddle and how learning the craft helped awaken her love of life and become connected to a nationwide community of teachers and artisans.

Genres: Music, Memoir, Nonfiction

276 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2010

About the author

Vivian Wagner is an award-winning writer and journalism professor at Muskingum University in Ohio. She lives in southeastern Ohio with her two children.

Reviews

[Catherine Davison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only of interest to me because of my love of fiddle playing and music. Not a particularly well written piece, more like a young person 's blog, but interesting observations about music, instruments, bluegrass and music camps.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I know a lot more about fiddles and fiddling now. Wagner, trained in childhood as a classical violinist, becomes intrigued by the fiddle—same instrument, different way of playing it. She travels around the U.S. taking lessons, attending contests and festivals, and interviewing fiddlers, from bluegrass to Celtic to Cajun. At the same time, her marriage is falling apart and she’s trying to figure out a new life. It’s all very interesting and makes me want to go play music, but it suffers from an awkward mix of journalism and memoir. The narrative often pauses while she offers the results of her fiddle research, and her efforts to link her life lessons to her fiddle lessons, e.g., learning to improvise, fall flat. Still, I’ll give it a four.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short book about Vivian's journey to learn about fiddling and how that exploration coincided with the deterioration of her marriage.

I was amazed by her spirit of adventure to pick up and take trips to find a whole world of people who shared the same interest, often stepping into homes of people she didn't know at all. But it led her to find a group of people who have become her friends and with whom she shares a bond.

[Chris Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what i expected, but a fun and interesting read nonetheless.

As much a book about her personal journey as it is about her introduction and exploration of fiddling and all the different ranges of it.

I'm sure I will forget a few, but there's Appalachian, Scottish, West Texas, Cajun, Irish and so forth and she tries her hand at them all.

Cool read.

[Annmarie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots on details about fiddling and fiddlers of all kinds (bluegrass, celtic, klezmer, etc.) and how the violin is made. It's also about the author's odyssey from former Suzuki violin student and a mom to a divorced woman and fiddler. In theory this should have very interesting, but somehow it wasn't. The author didn't really reveal much of the her interior dialogue and emotions or about the failing relationship, and I felt disconnected from her story. Which would have been fine if the fiddling part had held me. Sadly even though I totally share her musical background and bluegrass interest, the fiddling information just wasn't written in a vibrant narrative way and also lost my interest. Bummer, I was looking forward to it.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have wondered how one goes from classical violin to playing bluegrass or other genres of folk music and jamming with others. From the cover: "The fiddle had reawakened not only her passion for music but for life itself." Vivian Wagner weaves a story of her personal odyssey to explore that passion and how, for her it opened a new way of living. If one wanted to learn to play fiddle, short of having local musicians with whom to play and learn from, this book gives one an idea of how to go about it.

[Frankie michelle dennison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book as it weaved between her learning to play fiddle, while navigating the changes in her adult life. I wish it would have reflected more on her playing violin and maybe less on the questioning of how she learned. BUT to question these players was how she learned to play, so I see why she added that. It just didn't flow for me through some of the parts with that. All in all though, easy enjoyable read.

[Annm · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it's never clear in the story why her marriage failed, what she does document is her growth as a musician. As some one who as taken up the fiddle as an adult, I found her story more relevant than I expected to my own musical experiences.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice biographical account of how one woman started a path to learn to play fiddle. Interesting how it paralleled my own life!!

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

While learning to play the fiddle the author learns to improvise in music and in life as marriage falls apart. I learned a lot about music in this book.