What Is The Official Musical Instrument For South Dakota?

I knew we had some 'state stuff'.

State bird (Ring-Neck Pheasant, duh), state fish (Walleye), even a state dessert (Kuchen, I love me some Kuchen). A musical instrument? A state musical instrument?

Nope. I hadn't thought about that one. But if I had, I guess maybe a guitar, perhaps a piano? I suppose with all the high school and college bands in the state, maybe the trumpet, trombone, or saxophone. But of course, I'd be wrong.

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It's the fiddle, like the one pictured below.

Now for some reason, I'd always associated the fiddle with Bluegrass music and had associated Bluegrass music with the South. And not exactly the 'South' in South Dakota.

But then again, there certainly is some great fiddle in country music and even some in rock.

I mean who, at least of a certain age, hasn't cranked up Charlie Daniels and 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia'? We're talkin' some serious fiddlin' there! And there are a lot more fiddle tunes, too. So maybe I shouldn't have been all that surprised to find out that, according to South Dakota Law, it is indeed the instrument that musically represents our state. In fact, there's even a fiddle featured in the logo for the National Music Museum in Vermillion.

I guess I need to pay more attention. I apparently am, again, late to the party as far as knowing one of my favorite instruments is officially prominent in good ol' South Dakota. Oh, and one more thing:

Do you know the difference between a fiddle and a violin?

There isn't one. It just depends on how it's being played.