Fiddle music has been a part of American life since the time of the first permanent settlements by colonists from the British Isles and France. The rich diversity of local and regional fiddling traditions in the United States and Canada is a faithful record in musical form of North America's history. Because the fiddle was light, inexpensive, small, and relatively sturdy, it was ideally suited to the needs of pioneers, who carried it with them wherever they went, playing the tunes of the Old World and creating new pieces and performance techniques of their own. The fiddle was one of the few outlets for creative expression and sources of entertainment available. Fiddle music reflected the basic law of pioneer life: make the most of the resources at hand or do without.

Until the turn of this century, before technological revolutions transformed American rural life, the only music available to rural communities was still that which their families, friends, and neighbors knew and played, and much of that was fiddle music.