Nancy, my friend is just venting. He's a brilliant fiddler who had recorded professionally with many of the best players around and he just gets tied of too many jam sessions attened by people with too few skills. He has in fact recorded his own albums of old-time fiddle tunes and loves the music as much as anyone here. He's just tired of people who artifically limit their musical horrizons. He teaches fiddle as well and has great patience for those who are genuinely tring to improve.

Sorcha, your view of chopping is correct, short bursts of double stops on two adjacent strings. Some fiddlers bounce the bow in a normal playing position and some hold the fiddle like a mandolin, grasp the bow by the frog and chop downward almost like a flatpick motion. I imagine you already do it both ways.

      - Mark