This might be slightly off-center, but I have some experience that might be helpful.

In a former life, I taught sports car owners to drive their cars accurately, safely and fast.

They all wanted to go faster, and they all marvelled at the more skilled drivers who were very fast and apparently effortless.

And they all pressed hard. They pressed so hard that their driving became abrupt and jerky, and they lost smoothness and balance. The result was that (a) they didn’t go much faster and (b) they were often slightly out of control.

We told them: Ya gotta go slow to go fast. We had them drive at 7/10effort instead of 10/10. We taught them to focus on flow and balance. And guess what: they were more relaxed, regained smoothness and rhythm — and they got fast.

Some of these top players have a slight alteration to their timing to accentuate their phasing. Maybe you are being dragged a little faster for half a bar and find yourself slightly out of sync through some passages. You may be getting an illusion that his playing is faster than it actually is. If you were sitting in a room with him playing at the same speed it would all go smoothly. Something to try, tap your feet along with him and once you're in sync stop the recording maintaining the foot taps and play along with your tapping feet. 

It's not an illusion. A great many recorded tunes both older and recent are played very fast. I've often had the experience of trying to learn a tune and discovering it's being played faster than I'll probably ever play it. To me it's a joy to hear many tunes played fast if they're clean and sound relaxed. That's often a key to good playing, the tune moves along at a good pace and you hear no tension in it. I've more or less accepted I won't ever be one of those players. I've often heard it said that speed comes from learning slow. I'm convinced that's not all there is to it. There's a whole lot left out of that equation. It may have something to do with when you started learning to play. It's not only fiddle, it's all instruments. I'm pretty good on mandolin and maybe give the illusion of being fast sometimes, but I can't compare to the hot players out there.

But no sour grapes for me. If it sounds good I like it. If it sounds rushed or unnecessary I probably won't listen again.

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Originally posted by Brian Wood

It's not an illusion. A great many recorded tunes both older and recent are played very fast. I've often had the experience of trying to learn a tune and discovering it's being played faster than I'll probably ever play it. To me it's a joy to hear many tunes played fast if they're clean and sound relaxed. That's often a key to good playing, the tune moves along at a good pace and you hear no tension in it. I've more or less accepted I won't ever be one of those players. I've often heard it said that speed comes from learning slow. I'm convinced that's not all there is to it. There's a whole lot left out of that equation. It may have something to do with when you started learning to play. It's not only fiddle, it's all instruments. I'm pretty good on mandolin and maybe give the illusion of being fast sometimes, but I can't compare to the hot players out there.

But no sour grapes for me. If it sounds good I like it. If it sounds rushed or unnecessary I probably won't listen again.

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Yes that's interesting. I took up Irish style b&c accordion in Melbourne when I was nine and I can fly with the fastest still. Took up flute in my late teens and I can fly nearly as fast. Took up fiddle at around sixty but I get lost halfway now I'm sixty six but feel like the speed is coming soon. Maybe I'm just dreaming. 

Brian Wood "It's not an illusion" ... well, if someone is playing quite fast, but creates an impression that they're playing quite slow, I'm not sure what's wrong with the term "illusion" ......?

martjoe - I just turned 80, and although I can still play. at least in my case I haven't gotten any faster in the last 20 years!

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Originally posted by Old Scratch

Brian Wood "It's not an illusion" ... well, if someone is playing quite fast, but creates an impression that they're playing quite slow, I'm not sure what's wrong with the term "illusion" ......?

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Sure, okay.

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Originally posted by DougD

martjoe - I just turned 80, and although I can still play. at least in my case I haven't gotten any faster in the last 20 years!

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Oh yes. But I'm really just starting out. The great thing for me is I don't have to learn too many tunes, I just need to learn the fiddle. Another great thing about taking up fiddle is my speed on flute was restricted due to fast right hand fingers and slow left hand fingers. Now the left hand is flying on the flute which means my fiddle speed is only restricted by my brain. So it's a case of getting familiar with the patterns that the fingers have to move and improving the finger/brain connection. Nearly there!  Look at Stephan Gripelli (spell?) he could fly into his latter years leaving a few younger fiddlers in his wake. 

@Brian Wood  Thank you - that's the first win I've had on the internet in ages .... Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go write a note in my diary ... !

One time, many years ago, we gathered for band rehearsal. We were just getting our instruments out when I must have been thinking to myself to warm up a little. I didn't want to be too loud, so I naturally relaxed the bow pressure, and my left-hand fingers followed suit. I'm not sure what I was thinking at the time, and I don't remember anything else about this rehearsal other than this short little incident of me warming up. I didn't even finish the particular tune I was warming up with. I began playing a jig at breakneck speed. I knew full well the tempo was ridiculous, but maybe I wanted to get the warm-up over with. I remember this well, not only because I was playing fast, but because the bowing was clean and the left-hand fingers were well articulated.

I actually had a little chuckle to myself because of that, but I did not receive any looks of encouragement—only glaring eyeballs. That is also a reason I remember this well; it was embarrassing.

My bandmates were not impressed, and definitely not an illusion to them.

It could be because ima lefty playing righty, but I can't strum a guitar very fast. And when I resort to halftime, it sounds awful.
But a bow seems to dance/bounce in such a way that the notes spill out. The reason I shuffle is because I can't get my left/fingerboard hand to respond as fast as the bow. Maybe that is why the first shuffle originated?

Well, to play a tune as fast as you can.... which is different for each of us ... technique, loose wrist and fingers, keeping the noting fingers close to the fingerboard, setup, level of experience .... you have to know a specific tune or song so well you are not thinking about what is next. You KNOW the noting, bowing, syncopation choices without thinking about it. That is part of playing in a relaxed manner, knowing. Contest players talk about playing a song almost ad infinitum before entering a contest. One thing I often do is clock a recording with a metronome. I often find I will "never" play that fast. I'm a Kenny Baker stylist I " don't play the same thing once". As Jimmy Buffet wrote "sometimes it's magic sometimes it's tragic" ....... Play on friends and enjoy the process. R/

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Originally posted by UsuallyPickin

You KNOW the noting, bowing, syncopation choices without thinking about it. That is part of playing in a relaxed manner, knowing. 

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That's very true. One thing that hinders me, even at my moderated speeds, is thinking. There are days when I seem to play well and I feel satisfaction in it. But I'm kind of an over=thinker sometimes, and sometimes I start thinking while I'm playing and go completely off the rails. It doesn't matter if I'm thinking about what I had for lunch or how to punch up an upcoming line in the tune I'm playing: Thinking wrecks everything. When I can stop thinking I play better, and more up to speed.

I think a great part of the slow-fast phenomenon is to do with the cleanness of the playing. Really good players are able to sound effortless because they have the motions under control and they’re not pushing to reach speed, they’re at home there and focusing on their phrasing. When you’re trying to speed up to reach a fast tempo, the perception of the disparity can lead to overcorrection by one or both hands. One of the most common articulation problems is the left hand moving faster than the right, making the notes jumbled and muddy. Getting them in sync goes a long way to improvement, and as in the driving example, learning to drive the instrument at less than 10/10 exertion helps to get control much more than flooring the gas pedal non-stop. Getting things under control at a lower speed and working up also helps immensely with stage nerves. Adrenaline tends to increase tempo, but that can be supported if the hands are in shape to deal with it.

Economy of motion plays a big part as well. That doesn’t mean the motion is necessarily slower, just that it is carefully conserved so that it can be expended ideally. My old friend and golf instructor used to say that the most beautiful players to watch had swings that looked impossibly slow, but you shouldn’t be fooled into thinking they were hitting slowly or that they were putting in less effort to hit. As he put it, they slowed down their swings where they could, but at the most important zone of the swing, they made their club faces come in with incredible intensity and deadly precision.

I also think it’s important not to push the equipment too much. As the saying goes, “Let the tool do the work.” When you push the bow too much, you overpower its balance and lose all of its nuance. I struggled so much with spiccato when I was learning it because I had a tendency to try to make the bow bounce instead of letting it do so. It took an embarrassingly long time before I realized how much less the bow should be moving to get it to bounce. I see a lot of the professional players playing spiccato when they come in for work because they use the same excerpts for auditions and they all keep them polished to be ready for auditions. It amazes me to watch them rattle off those incredibly technical passages nonchalantly just to test an adjustment or a fresh rehair. Their motion is perfectly economized so that they play with a cleanness of articulation that’s quite humbling.

The trick is to be able to play as fast as you want to, without sounding like you're in a hurry. When I hear somebody, and think "They're playing too fast," it's seldom due to the actual bpm of the tempo, but rather that they're playing just a bit faster than they're able to play well.

The Violin Beautiful Rich: I suspect you've nailed it with the notions of being "at home" at speed and "economy of motion" (which would include "not pushing the equipment"). Consistent with what Dan Gellert said after you, and others said before, of course.

Old Scratch, it is sort of like listening to a foreign language.. Sounds like they are talking so fast until you learn the language.. Instead of hearing syllables, you start hearing words and phrases ..which seem SLOW compared to syllables.. Same with music.. Some tunes that seem out of control, speed wise, suddenly are slow once you learn them.. I could be wrong .

Old Scratch - There have been lots of good comments, but I'll just add that no matter how fast you're playing you have to let the music "breathe" - there has to be a little space between the notes in there somewhere. There's a difference between playing fast and sounding rushed. I've been fortunate to have gotten to play with a lot of people who could do this. Of course you have to have economical technique and know what it is you want to play. Practicing slowly can help with both of these - if you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you do it?
Doc Watson was a master at this - his playing seemed so effortless. I spent many hours playing guitar along with his early records, which was harder than it seemed like it would be. I finally got to play a set with him once (on banjo) and it was very easy, although we weren't going "full bore" in that situation.

I guess I didn't quite get across what I was talking about - and without being able to provide a sample of the recording, I probably shouldn't have tried ... but, anyway, my question was not How do you play fast?, but rather, How does someone sound like they're playing slow when they're actually playing fast? Like, if I hear Don Messer, I know he's playing fast, and if I want to play along, I know it might be a challenge to keep up. But with this guy, I thought, I'll just play along, and see if I can get that slow, measured pace with the same groove - and then I discovered he was actually flooring it. I wouldn't have thought you could get any kind of a groove going at that speed; I suppose it must come from being so "at home", as Rich puts it, with the tunes and the playing speed that he can just relax into it to create a laid-back effect. Don't know if any of that makes any sense - what? Time for my meds already? Okay, back in a minute.

I think it's all down to being _extremely_ relaxed. Any tension at all anywhere destroys the flow. Bow hand especially-- thumb just chilling out down below, barely engaging, giving the bow the freedom to dance. Left hand just doing the bow's bidding. You can also play fast and tense-- but it will sound fast and tense.