if your little finger isn't over the tensioning nut, you can never exploit the most wonderful instrument there is to its full potential.

Keeping you left hand up at the dusty end of the finger board is no guarantee of producing a beautiful sound. An average player will still sound average. There are good and bad fiddlers and all shades in between, as there are with classical players. The best best fiddlers make their instruments sing and are way up there alongside the virtuoso classical violinists

Where did you get the idea that I don't appreciate the qualities of different soloists?

If you read my post of 05 May 19 - 04:06 AM, you will see that I am taking lessons to improve my playing (classical, as it happens), so where is the lack of interest?

It was you who started the generalising about fiddlers sitting in cars going "brum brum". Describing their music as "nice" smacks of snobbery.

DC