Musical styles (violin) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Classical music

Since the Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

era the violin (Baroque violin

Baroque violin

A baroque violin is, in common usage, any violin whose neck, fingerboard, bridge, and tailpiece are of the type used during the baroque period. Such an instrument may be an original built during the baroque and never changed to modern form; or a modern replica built as a baroque violin; or an...

) has been one of the most important of all instruments in classical music, for several reasons. The tone of the violin stands out above other instruments, making it appropriate for playing a melody line. In the hands of a good player, the violin is extremely agile, and can execute rapid and difficult sequences of notes. Indeed, the violin seems to lend itself to virtuosity more than any other instrument (its only possible rival is the piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

), and top violinists have amazed their audiences with their skill since the 17th century.

The violin is also considered a very expressive instrument, which is often felt to approximate the human voice. This may be due to the possibility of vibrato and of slight expressive adjustments in pitch and timbre. Many leading composers have contributed to the violin concerto

Violin concerto

A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin and instrumental ensemble, customarily orchestra. Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up through the present day...

and violin sonata

Violin sonata

A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, which is nearly always accompanied by a piano or other keyboard instrument, or by figured bass in the Baroque period.-A:*Ella Adayevskaya**Sonata Greca for Violin or Clarinet and Piano...

repertories.

Violins make up a large part of an orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

, and are usually divided into two sections, known as the first and second violins. Composers often assign the melody to the first violins (who are often given more technically difficult music), while second violins play harmony, accompaniment patterns or the melody in a lower range than the first violins. A string quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

similarly has parts for first and second violins, as well as a viola

Viola

The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

part, and a bass instrument, such as the cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

or, rarely, the double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

Popular music

During the 1920s and early 1930s, violins were an integral part of popular music, especially for dance music. Dances orchestras typically had at least 2 or 3 violins, although many high class society orchestras would often include as much as 6 or 7. With the introduction of swing music in 1935, the violin, along with other string instruments, dropped out of popular music as they were deemed inappropriate for the swing sound. Violins would only re-emerge in popular music in the late 1960s.

While the violin has had very little usage in rock

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

music compared to its brethren the guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

and bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

, it is being increasingly absorbed into mainstream pop. Independent artists such as Final Fantasy

Owen Pallett

Michael James Owen Pallett is a Canadian composer, violinist, keyboardist, and vocalist from Toronto, Ontario. He won the 2006 Polaris Music Prize for the album He Poos Clouds....

and Andrew Bird

Andrew Bird

Andrew Bird is an American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist.- Early life and the Bowl of Fire :...

have increased interest as well, creating a subcategory of indie rock

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

that some have termed "violindie".

The violin is also used in mainstream pop acts like Vanessa-Mae

Vanessa-Mae

Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson , known professionally as Vanessa-Mae , is an internationally known British violinist. Her music style is self-described as "violin techno-acoustic fusion", as several of her albums prominently feature the techno style...

, Bond

Bond (band)

Bond is an Australian/British string quartet that specialises in classical crossover music...

, Miri Ben-Ari

Miri Ben-Ari

Miri Ben-Ari is an Israeli violinist, who currently resides in the United States.Ben-Ari grew up playing classical music; she started training at age 5 and at age 12, she was presented with a violin by Isaac Stern. During her mandatory Israeli military service, she was chosen to play for the...

, Yellowcard

Yellowcard

Yellowcard is an American pop punk/alternative rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida in 1997, and based in Los Angeles, California since 2000. Their music features the use of a violin, unusual for the genre...

, Nigel Kennedy

Nigel Kennedy

Nigel Kennedy is a British born violinist and violist. He made his early career in the classical field, and he has performed and recorded most of the major violin concerti...

, and Dave Matthews Band

Dave Matthews Band

Dave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...

with Boyd Tinsley

Boyd Tinsley

Boyd Calvin Tinsley is an American violinist and mandolinist who performs as a member of the Dave Matthews Band. Within the band, Tinsley has collaborated in writing songs, harmonizing, and singing backing vocals.-Early life:Tinsley was raised in a musical family...

and Jean-Luc Ponty

Jean-Luc Ponty

Jean-Luc Ponty is a French virtuoso violinist and jazz composer.- Early years:Ponty was born into a family of classical musicians on 29 September 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano...

; U2

U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...

also frequently uses the violin, especially the electric violin

Electric violin

An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument purposely made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body...

. The violin is also a part of the huge phenomenon called cello rock

Cello rock

Cello rock and cello metal are subgenres of rock music and heavy metal characterized by the use of cellos as primary instruments, alongside or in place of more traditional rock instruments such as electric guitars, electric bass guitar, and drum set.Cellos, often in groups of three or more, are...

.
The hugely popular Motown recordings of the 60's and 70's relied heavily on strings as part of the trademark texture. Earlier genres of pop music, at least those separate from the Rock 'n' Roll

Rock and roll

movement, tended to make use of fairly traditional Orchestra

Orchestra

s, sometimes large ones; examples include the American "Crooners"

Crooner

Crooner is an American epithet given to male singers of pop standards, mostly from the Great American Songbook, either backed by a full orchestra, a big band or by a piano. Originally it was an ironic term denoting an emphatically sentimental, often emotional singing style made possible by the use...

such as Bing Crosby.

Though bowed strings were heavily popular and relied upon in almost all types of music genre recordings in the 60's and 70's, disco music, which surged aggressively onto the music scene in the early to mid 1970's, also relied heavily upon strings within its compositions; in fact, almost all disco/dance music of that era incorporated the use of strings within its compositions and arrangements. After the sudden decline of disco began in the early 80's, the use of strings not only dwindled in disco music, but ceased in almost all types of popular music during that time and more so immediately after disco's death. The 1980s saw an insurgence of electronic music mimicking strings with little or no use of traditional strings in music compositions. Now strings are making a comeback in pop music.

Indian, Pakistani, Turkish and Arabic pop music is filled with the sound of violins, both soloists and ensembles.

Jazz

The earliest references to jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

performance using the violin as a solo instrument are documented during the first decades of the 20th century. The first great jazz violinist was Joe Venuti who is best known for his work with guitarist Eddie Lang

Eddie Lang

Eddie Lang was an American jazz guitarist, regarded as the Father of Jazz Guitar. He played a Gibson L-4 and L-5 guitar, providing great influence for many guitarists, including Django Reinhardt.-Biography:...

during the 1920s.

Jazz, 1935-1960

In the swing and post-war eras there were many superb improvising violinists including Stéphane Grappelli

Stéphane Grappelli

Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....

, Stuff Smith

Stuff Smith

Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith , better known as Stuff Smith, was a jazz violinist. He is known well for the song "If You're a Viper".-Biography:...

, Ray Perry

Ray Perry

Ray Perry was an American jazz violinist and saxophonist.Perry was born in 1915 to a musical family and began playing the violin at a young age, while his brothers Joe and Bay became a baritonist and drummer, respectively...

, Ray Nance

Ray Nance

Ray Willis Nance was a jazz trumpeter, violinist and singer.Nance is best known for his long association with Duke Ellington through most of the 1940s and 1950s, after he was hired to replace Cootie Williams in 1940...

and Claude "Fiddler" Williams

Claude Williams (musician)

Claude "The Fiddler" Williams was an American jazz violinist and guitarist.Williams was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 1908, and by 10 he had learned to play guitar, mandolin, banjo and cello. Upon hearing Joe Venuti play, he was inspired to take up the violin...

Modern jazz, 1961-present

Noteworthy modern jazz violinists who joined the scene between 1960 and 1990 and usually played in an avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

vein include Leroy Jenkins, Billy Bang

Billy Bang

Billy Bang was an American free jazz violinist and composer.-Biography:...

, Malcolm Goldstein

Malcolm Goldstein

Malcolm Goldstein is a composer, violinist and improviser who has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960s. He received an M.A. in music composition from Columbia University in 1960, having studied with Otto Luening...

, Michael White

Michael White (violinist)

Michael Walter White is an American jazz violinist.White was born in Houston, Texas, and grew up in Oakland, California, taking up the violin when he was nine years old. He first became known in 1965 when he played with the John Handy Quintet at the Monterey Jazz Festival, and recorded three...

, John Blake, Jr.

John Blake, Jr.

John Blake, Jr. is an American jazz violinist. He has performed most prominently as a sideman in groups led by Grover Washington, Jr. in the late 1970s) and McCoy Tyner , as well as led his own groups.-External links:*[ allmusic's inventory of his record appearances]**...

, and Florin Niculescu

Florin Niculescu

Florin Niculescu is a Romanian violinist of Romani ethnicity. He is considered to be the best jazz manouche violinist of our days, the successor of Stéphane Grappelli...

. Younger performers include Mat Maneri

Mat Maneri

Mat Maneri, born on October 4, 1969 in Brooklyn, New York is an American composer, improviser and jazz violin and viola player, specifically derivatives such as the five-string viola, the electric six-string violin, and the baritone violin...

, Katt Hernandez

Katt Hernandez

Katt Hernandez is a violinist living in Stockholm, Sweden with strong connection to Boston, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Baltimore, Maryland. Katt's violin playing employs many virtuostic extended techniques, as well as microtones. Her influences range a vast gamut of music, and...

and Regina Carter

Regina Carter

Regina Carter is an American jazz violinist. She is the cousin of famous jazz saxophonist James Carter.-Early life:...

.

Jazz fusion

Jazz fusion

Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...

violinists include Jean-Luc Ponty

Jean-Luc Ponty

and Michal Urbaniak

Michal Urbaniak

Michał Urbaniak is a Polish jazz musician and composer born in Warsaw, playing mainly the violin, lyricon and saxophone during concerts and recordings...

Folk music

Like many other instruments of classical music, the violin descends from remote ancestors, cruder in form, that were used for folk music. Following a stage of intensive development in the late Renaissance, largely in Italy, the violin had improved (in volume, tone, and agility), to the point that it not only became a very important instrument in art music, but proved highly appealing to folk musicians as well. As a folk instrument, the violin ultimately spread very widely, sometimes displacing earlier bowed instruments, and ethnomusicologists

Ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...

have observed its use in many locations throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

In many traditions of folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, the tunes are not written but are memorized by successive generations of musicians and passed on in what is known as the oral tradition

Oral tradition

Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...

Fiddle

When played as a folk instrument, the violin is ordinarily referred to in English as a fiddle.

One difference between "fiddles" and ordinary violins may be seen in American (e.g., bluegrass

Bluegrass music

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

and old-time music

Old-time music

Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music, with roots in the folk music of many countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland and countries in Africa. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dance, buck dance, and clogging. The genre also...

) fiddling: in these styles, the bridge is sometimes shaved down so that it is slightly less curved. This reduces the range of motion needed for shuffle bowings which alternate between pairs of strings.

There is quite often only a single fiddle playing in any given venue, although twin fiddling is represented in some styles. By contrast, violins often play in sections, since sound reinforcement (before electronic amplification) was only possible by adding instruments. The Italian term ripieno
Ripieno
Ripieno or tutti can refer to:*the larger of the two ensembles in the concerto grosso. This is opposed to the concertino which are the soloists.*the notes added when realizing the figured bass of a basso continuo....

may be translated as 'filling' (or "stuffing" in the culinary sense) since many instruments "fill out" the sound.

Indian classical music

The Indian violin, while essentially the same instrument as that used in Western music, is different in some senses. The instrument is tuned so that the IV and III strings (G and D on a western-tuned violin) and the II and I (A and E) strings are sa-pa (do-sol) pairs and sound the same but are offset by an octave, resembling common scordatura
Scordatura
A scordatura , also called cross-tuning, is an alternative tuning used for the open strings of a string instrument, in which the notes indicated in the score would represent the finger position as if played in regular tuning, while the actual pitch is altered...

or fiddle cross-tunings such as CGCG or AEAE. The tonic sa (do) is not fixed, but variably tuned to accommodate the vocalist or lead player.

The way the musician holds the instrument varies from Western to Indian music. In Indian music the musician sits on the floor cross-legged with the right foot out in front of them. The scroll of the instrument rests on the foot. This position is essential to playing well due to the nature of Indian music. The hand can move all over the fingerboard and there is no set position for the left hand, so it is important for the violin to be in a steady, unmoving position.

The violin is a very important part of Indian classical music

Indian classical music

The origins of Indian classical music can be found in the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures in the Hindu tradition. Indian classical music has also been significantly influenced by, or syncretised with, Indian folk music and Persian music. The Samaveda, one of the four Vedas, describes music...

. It is believed to have been introduced to the Indian tradition by Baluswamy Dikshitar. The violin is primarily used as support for a vocalist, as the sound of a violin complements that of the singer, but is also largely played solo.

In solo violin concerts, the violinist is accompanied by percussion instruments, usually the tabla

Tabla

The tabla is a popular Indian percussion instrument used in Hindustani classical music and in popular and devotional music of the Indian subcontinent. The instrument consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres...

, the mridangam and the ghatam

Ghatam

The ghaṭam is a percussion instrument used in the Carnatic music of South India. Its analogue in Rajasthan is known as the madga and pani mataqa "water jug"....

.

The violin is also a principal instrument for Indian film music. V. S. Narasimhan is among the leading players in the South Indian film industry, with many hits in the film world.

Classical music

Popular music

Jazz

Jazz, 1935-1960

Modern jazz, 1961-present

Folk music

Fiddle

Indian classical music

See also