Mark Kroos.com His entire guitar career is based on this style. Banjo players love to play duets, but he turns duets into solos.

What does alternative style guitar playing have to do with fiddle? I'm not sure.

Repetitive listening seems to be the key everyone is calling for in all these comments. Too bad you only get one run through of each song at a jam to figure everything out. If you don't start playing the first time through, you don't play at all. Perhaps, with practice, I can come up with a general overlay or generic backup style that will work generally from the beginning and hone it as the song progresses.

Who's Pierre?

"Slap Guitar" makes sense since the guitar strings are mostly plucked anyway, the same as a harp or the hammers of a piano. The key difference to a bowed instrument is the BOW.

Conversely, you can bow a guitar but that's not very easy or effective, even for professional musicians.

These tools of the musical trade are designed for an intended function, and, like hardware tools, work best when used for that purpose. Sure you can use a screwdriver as a pry bar, but it's not designed for that and will break. You can use a violin like a guitar or a guitar like a violin but other than variety and weird noise, it's not necessarily 'musical'.

Conversely, Darol Anger's "chop" sounded more like really short bow strokes with a sharp, short down strokes and sharp, short up strokes. A similar metronome action, if not the same auditory effect, could be had with short bowing to avoid the scratching noises that's so egregious. Darol chops with solid, sure strokes that sound like "CHOP" or "CHUNK", while Casey's chops sound like "SH-Chop" or "sh-Chunk", like metal scratching metal as his bow gets too much longitudinal movement rather than straight up-down. Perhaps it's a matter of opinion or purity or training, but that's the opposite of the sound I'm trying to make with a violin and bow. I'm going to ethereal, sweet, flowing and lovely, not choppy, scratchy and spastic. Even a fast song is supposed to flow and not just chitter.

There's a small advantage to imitating another instrument at times, but why discard the advantage of a violin and bow for the disadvantages of a guitar? Why not combine the advantages of both? That's why I'm waiting for my Style 4 Celio Electric Violin to arrive. I get the advantages of electric as well as a quiet acoustic. I can get the peddles for an electric instrument with the portability advantages of a compact acoustic. I get the recording, distortion, layering and post-prod capabilities that electric guitars have with the size, fingering, and bow of a violin.

I mentioned to my mom about getting another violin, and she asked why I didn't get a piano. Apparently the idea of portability was lost in translation. I asked my FIL for music tips on fiddling, and he suggested learning the guitar. I'm asking questions of experienced fiddlers here, but seem to be getting brushed off with "go back to school" and "if you had my experience, you'd already know" style answers. I was hoping that there was a clear path between Grade 1 "This is a Violin" Basics and College Level Fiddling. There's more to math and writing than just "practice more" in middle school and high school. There needs to be more than "practice more" in 7th Grade Fiddling.

If you looked back at the first series of replies, it was either SUPER-ADVANCED music theory (College level) or "what sounds good" (no school). When I expressed ignorance of the former, a few tried to "dumb down" to a more understandable (to me) level.

I'm glad y'all are professional musicians, but imagine asking a computer question and being answered in Geek or a lawyer a legal question and answered in Latin legalese. It's common human nature to assume that everyone else is just like you, but it's not helpful to the student by those who call themselves "teacher".

Understanding is expressed in what you do as well as what you communicate about what you do. Hearing good music tells me that you know what you're doing with that instrument. Talking about music tells me that you REALLY KNOW music to speak in simple terms to a non-musician. I teach my 9 children math, English, science, etc. I teach co-workers how to drive big trucks and do oil field work. Explain it in small words and everyone understands. Explain it BIG words, and you exclude people who aren't "in". Were the replies given to exclude or include? I felt excluded, ignorant. When secondary replies were just as technical, I felt brushed off. I then sought my own answers from the limited directions I understood. 

Sorry that I let my personal feelings get in the way.

Thanks for pointing in the right direction.

My mom has a piano in her living room that she doesn't play so she wants me to learn piano so she can hear me play it even though her fondest wish is to play it herself. She's done that before. She wanted to go into medicine then real estate, but instead of pursuing them herself, she tried to force me into those career fields (1 year pre-med in college). When I eventually stood up to her, she pursued them herself and was the happier for it.

My original foray into violin was at her insistence. I started in clarinet and baritone, but she didn't like them since I had to blow. (She likes my singing voice.)

When a violin teacher came available for our school group, she jumped at the chance. I read music easy enough that practice time was minimal with some progress in muscle memory and more progress in faster reading / passage memorization. After the first year, the teacher died.

http://mds.marshall.edu/music_perf/356/

The next teacher was younger but gone so much the lessons weren't as regular but sporadic. He eventually stopped teaching altogether because his tour schedule. I kept playing on up until I left for college in 1993. After that, it was hit and miss for 5 years, then total separation since then.

As to my FIL, you're probably right. He knew guitar, banjo, and mandolin, but the violin is a foreign concept that he didn't understand. He couldn't even tell me the notes of his guitar chords, only finger "shapes". (Mine are short & fat. His are long & bony.)

All learning begins in the mind. Skill is achieved with lots of practice by the body. Nothing is difficult if the mind understands it first. I have to see the results of my woodcraft and how the pieces fit together before I cut the first piece. Otherwise, I can't build it. Every piece of furniture I make is better than the previous piece. Practice improves and refines, but it doesn't teach. I know what I want to achieve and how; it's just a matter of skill in doing it.

Similarly, music is mental first, physical second. First, you hear the music in your mind, then practice the skill to bring what you hear in your head out of your instrument so I can hear it with my ear. A skilled person can bring it to the physical world quickly most of the time. When they error, they recognize it and can correct it. An unskilled person won't recognize the error or how to correct it.

The teacher points out the error, how to correct it, and guides the student along the path to increased understanding while the student himself walks the path of skill through listening and practice. Listening to the piece correctly over and over imprints the "correct" tune in your head so you can duplicate it yourself. Thus it's easier to learn simple songs with words ("Twinkle, Twinkle") than unsung meoldies ("Canon in D").

Playing backup is a different skill since you're trying to overlay and extend the sound from a simple melody or basic chord rhythm to a fuller, more complex tapestry, even if it's simply in a different register. You still have to have the idea in your mind of what you're trying to accomplish and the mental tools to know how, even if the violin "refuses to cooperate" with your level of skill to achieve it.