Violectra is the name of a range of

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 fi ...

, 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 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 Kenn ...

Richard Tognetti Richard Leo Tognetti AO (born 4 August 1965) is a leading Australian musician recognised internationally as a violin soloist, ensemble player, leader, composer and arranger, conductor and artistic director. He is currently artistic dire ...

Stephen Nachmanovitch Stephen Nachmanovitch is a musician, author, computer artist, and educator. He is an improvisational violinist, and writes and teaches about improvisation, creativity, and systems approaches in many fields of activity. Biography Born in 1950, Na ...

Leila Josefowicz Leila Bronia Josefowicz ( ; born October 20, 1977) is an American-Canadian classical violinist. Biography Josefowicz was born in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. When she was a young child her family moved to Los Angeles, California, where she sta ...

and many more professional players worldwide. Previously, Violectra was the trade name of an

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 fi ...

produced by Barcus-Berry with the pitch equivalent of an acoustic

tenor violin A tenor violin (or tenor viola) is an instrument with a range between those of the cello and the viola. An earlier development of the evolution of the violin family of instruments, the instrument is not standard in the modern symphony orchestra. I ...

, sometimes called

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 strin ...

. It is tuned an octave below normal violin, i.e. between

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 ...

and

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), t ...

. It was developed in USA by Barcus-Berry in the early 1960s.

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 admitt ...

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. U ...

and

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 Erzséb ...

were among the first jazz violinists to play it. Fiddler

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 ...

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 early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...

context. The first recording known of with it is by the maker himself John Berry on a 1963 demonstration album. However, in common parlance amongst musicians, a violectra is an electric violin with a C string added so that it can play the full range of the violin or viola.

External links

* http://www.violectra.co.uk Amplified instruments Violins