Violectra
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Violectra
Violectra is the name of a range of electric violins, violas and cellos designed, developed and hand made by David Bruce Johnson, a Canadian violin maker settled in Birmingham, England. These instruments are played by Nigel Kennedy, Richard Tognetti, Stephen Nachmanovitch, Leila Josefowicz and many more professional players worldwide. Previously, Violectra was the trade name of an electric violin produced by Barcus-Berry with the pitch equivalent of an acoustic tenor violin, sometimes called baritone violin. It is tuned an octave below normal violin, i.e. between viola and cello. It was developed in USA by Barcus-Berry in the early 1960s. Jean-Luc Ponty, Michał Urbaniak and Elek Bacsik were among the first jazz violinists to play it. Fiddler Vassar Clements brought the instrument into the progressive bluegrass scene, and Urban Blitz into a rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and ear ...
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Electric Violins
An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument intentionally made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body. It can also refer to a violin fitted with an electric pickup of some type, although "amplified violin" or "electro-acoustic violin" are more accurate then. History Electrically amplified violins have been used in one form or another since the 1920s; jazz and blues artist Stuff Smith is generally credited as being one of the first performers to adapt pickups and amplifiers to violins. The Electro Stringed Instrument Corporation, National String Instrument Corporation and Vega Company sold electric violins in the 1930s and 1940s; Fender advertised an electric violin in 1958 (first production model pictured at the head of this page) but withdrew it at the point of production. After Fender was bought by CBS, the electric violin went into production in 1969 until 1975. B ...
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Electric Violin
An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument intentionally made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body. It can also refer to a violin fitted with an electric pickup of some type, although "amplified violin" or "electro-acoustic violin" are more accurate then. History Electrically amplified violins have been used in one form or another since the 1920s; jazz and blues artist Stuff Smith is generally credited as being one of the first performers to adapt pickups and amplifiers to violins. The Electro Stringed Instrument Corporation, National String Instrument Corporation and Vega Company sold electric violins in the 1930s and 1940s; Fender advertised an electric violin in 1958 (first production model pictured at the head of this page) but withdrew it at the point of production. After Fender was bought by CBS, the electric violin went into production in 1969 until 1975. ...
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Cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, scientific pitch notation, C2, G2, D3 and A3. The viola's four strings are each an octave higher. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, with tenor clef, and treble clef used for higher-range passages. Played by a ''List of cellists, cellist'' or ''violoncellist'', it enjoys a large solo repertoire Cello sonata, with and List of solo cello pieces, without accompaniment, as well as numerous cello concerto, concerti. As a solo instrument, the cello uses its whole range, from bassline, bass to soprano, and in chamber music such as string quartets and the orchestra's string section, it often plays the bass part, where it may be reinforced an octave lower by the double basses. Figure ...
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Rock Music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom.W. E. Studwell and D. F. Lonergan, ''The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from its Beginnings to the mid-1970s'' (Abingdon: Routledge, 1999), p.xi It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the blues and rhythm and blues genres of African-American music and from country music. Rock also drew strongly from a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical, and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a time signature using a verse–chorus form, ...
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Urban Blitz
Urban Blitz is an English rock musician, best known for his "eerie and atmospheric" (Ira Robbins) electric violin, baritone violectra and lead guitar work with the 1970s London protopunk art rock band Doctors of Madness.Robbins, IraDoctors of Madness, ''Trouser Press'', retrieved 2011-07-10 However, Blitz had considerable earlier musical experience, graduating from a classical background to hone his skills on the London late 1960s, and early 1970s club and pub rock scene. He travelled to Italy in early 1973, to play with the Neapolitan Italian / Celtic chanteuse, Jenny Sorrenti. He lived and rehearsed with Sorrenti's band, 'Saint Just', in the House on the Lake on Lake Bracciano, that led to the album of the same name, but before the recording, Blitz left Italy to join the Doctors of Madness in June 1974. With Doctors of Madness, Blitz further developed his unique counterpoint electric violin style, incorporating a garage rock edge to complement the Doctor's nihilistic, manic ...
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Vassar Clements
Vassar Carlton Clements (April 25, 1928 – August 16, 2005) was an American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and bluegrass along with roots also in country and other musical traditions. Biography Clements was born in Kinard, Florida and grew up in Kissimmee. He taught himself to play the fiddle at age 7, learning "There's an Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor" as his first song. Soon, he joined with two first cousins, Red and Gerald, to form a local string band. In his early teens Clements met Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys when they came to Florida to visit Clements' stepfather, a friend of fiddler Chubby Wise. Clements was impressed with his playing. In late 1949, Wise left Monroe's group, and the 21 year-old Clements traveled by bus to ask for an audition. When told he would have to return the next day, Clements was crestfallen, lacking the ...
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Elek Bacsik
Elek Bacsik (22 May 1926 – 14 February 1993) was a Hungarian-American jazz guitarist and violinist. He was the cousin of guitarist Django Reinhardt. Career Bacsik was born in Budapest, Hungary. He was the son of Árpád Bacsik and Erzsébet Pócsi. He studied classical violin at the Budapest Conservatory before moving to jazz guitar. He worked in a big band with Jozsef Quitter and Geza Szabo and recorded for the first time in his career with this band in 1943. A few years later he went on tour in Europe and Lebanon with Mihaly Tabanyi. He was hired by Renato Carosone to be in a quartet with Peter Van Wood and Gegè Di Giacomo in which he played bass, violin, and guitar. When he lived in Paris, he accompanied American musicians who were passing through, such as Lou Bennett, Dizzy Gillespie, Quentin Jackson, Art Simmons, and Clark Terry. He also supported French singer Serge Gainsbourg. In 1966, he moved to the U.S. and until 1974 accompanied Teresa Brewer. In the 1970s he ...
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Michał Urbaniak
Michał Urbaniak (born January 22, 1943) is a Polish jazz musician who plays violin, lyricon, and saxophone. His music includes elements of folk music, rhythm and blues, hip hop, and symphonic music. History He was born in Warsaw, Poland. Urbaniak started his music education during high school in Łódź, Poland, and continued from 1961 in Warsaw in the violin class of Tadeusz Wroński. Learning to play on the alto saxophone alone, he first played in a Dixieland band, and later with Zbigniew Namysłowski and the Jazz Rockers, with whom he performed during the Jazz Jamboree festival in 1961. After this, he was invited to play with Andrzej Trzaskowski, and toured the United States in 1962 with the Andrzej Trzaskowski band, the Wreckers, playing at festivals and clubs in Newport, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City. After returning to Poland, he worked with Krzysztof Komeda's quintet (1962–1964). Together, they left for Scandinavia, where, after f ...
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Jean-Luc Ponty
Jean-Luc Ponty (born 29 September 1942) is a French jazz violinist and composer. Early life Ponty was born into a family of classical musicians in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. At sixteen, he was admitted to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, graduating two years later with the institution's highest honor, Premier Prix (first prize). He was hired by the Concerts Lamoureux in which he played for three years. While still a member of the orchestra in Paris, Ponty picked up a side job playing clarinet (which his father had taught him) for a college jazz band, that regularly performed at local parties. It proved life-changing. A growing interest in Miles Davis and John Coltrane compelled him to take up tenor saxophone. One night after an orchestra concert, and still wearing his tuxedo, Ponty found himself at a local club with only his violin. Within four years, he was widely accepted as the leading figure in "jazz fid ...
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Viola
The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth above) and the cello (which is tuned an octave below). The strings from low to high are typically tuned to scientific pitch notation, C3, G3, D4, and A4. In the past, the viola varied in size and style, as did its names. The word viola originates from the Italian language. The Italians often used the term viola da braccio meaning literally: 'of the arm'. "Brazzo" was another Italian word for the viola, which the Germans adopted as ''Bratsche''. The French had their own names: ''cinquiesme'' was a small viola, ''haute contre'' was a large viola, and ''taile'' was a tenor. Today, the French use the term ''alto'', a reference to its range. The viola was popular in the heyd ...
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Nigel Kennedy
Nigel Kennedy (born 28 December 1956) is an English violinist and violist. His early career was primarily spent performing classical music, and he has since expanded into jazz, klezmer, and other music genres. Early life and background Kennedy's grandfather was Lauri Kennedy, principal cellist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and his grandmother was Dorothy Kennedy, a pianist. Lauri and Dorothy Kennedy were Australian, while their son, the cellist John Kennedy, was born in England. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in London, at age 22, John joined the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, later becoming the principal cellist of Sir Thomas Beecham's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. While in England, John developed a relationship with an English pianist, Scylla Stoner, with whom he eventually toured in 1952 as part of the Llewellyn-Kennedy Piano Trio (with the violinist Ernest Llewellyn; Stoner was billed as "Scylla Kennedy" after she and John married). But th ...
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Baritone Violin
A Baritone violin is a member of the violin family and has two specific meanings: * a violin tuned an octave below conventional violin tuning (G2–D3–A3–E4). This is commonly accomplished by stringing a standard violin with heavy gauge strings, sometimes specially manufactured for this purpose. Oversize instruments with the same range and tuning also exist and are known as tenor violins. * the third largest member of the violin octet family of instruments, with the same tuning as a cello (C2–G2–D3–A3) but larger in size. The most commonly available strings for converting a standard violin to the baritone range are manufactured by Thomastik under the brand "Octavgeige." Performers on the baritone violin commonly use amplification to overcome the limited projection and sonority inherent with a lower range on a relatively small bodied instrument. In modern playing, it is more common to find the baritone violin in a jazz, newgrass, or experimental ensemble than in a classic ...
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