I did something radical and bought an electric violin!

[AnalogGuy]

I had this in my mind for years. I always loved the sound of violin but I knew it's very difficult instrument, but well... you really can't know anything until you buy one and "test" it by yourself! I always looked at web auctions waiting to find some higher quality electric violin (there's quite many bad ones... like acoustic violins as well), and then finally found one for right price. It was actually only used couple times in a demonstration occasion but otherwise was as new. It was sold at ebay by the company itself because they ditch away their older batches or used ones at ebay but this one even includes one year full warranty. The set also includes case, bow, resin, (crappy) headphones, audio cable and battery. For only 65 pounds, you really couldn't go wrong! 

To me, this one that I bought, looks a lot nicer than the entirely black one:




It also sounds great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJlb7z8CCGI

I was damn right... it's one of the most difficult instruments ever! Perhaps you all know guitar. Guitar is chromatic which means that there's those metallic frets which keeps the strings at specific spot so you can hold the strings without worrying the correct placement of fingers so it's a lot easier to play for the first time. But in violin there's no frets, which means that if you hold a string one millimeter upper or lower, it's out of tune. It's all about the feeling of your fingers and their right placement since there's no even marked spots. Guitar is like the opposite of violin: With guitar you can immediately play familiar notes and chords but it require a lot of practice to learn some more complex playing methods. In violin it's opposite: The beginning is always the hardest part. But as soon as you can get the grip of the playing technique, it will get more easier to learn new and more complicated things.

In violin fingering the strings is difficult enough but then you also must hold and move the bow straight. It's much more difficult than I originally thought because it requires so much of concentration on several different aspects at the same time:

1. Hold the strings at right spots to acquire notes in tune and memorize their place
2. Using right fingers regarding to level of the fingerboard
3. When moving the bow, you must keep it straight as it makes the sound worse if it's not
4. Keep the speed of moving bow steady
5. The pressure on bow affect to the volume and tone of the strings, and you must be careful not to use too much force.

Oh right... and I am not even mentioning the Vibrato! I am not joking about that it really requires about 3 years of practice alone to learn the technique of vibrato.

Violin requires surprisingly amount of maintenance, even for being electric one. First you need to tune up the each string, then put resin into bow's hairs which creates the friction into strings, though it's required to do only few times when it wears away. Then after each time you finish playing violin, you have to wipe out all the resin away from the strings and from the body of violin. And also, if you keep violin without any use for longer than a week, you should loosen up the strings which means you have to tune them up again in next time.

Another really surprising thing about holding violin: You actually have to hold the violin only by using your shoulder and head. You can't do things like vibrato if you are using your hand to hold the violin! How the heck are you supposed to hold the strings hardly when you can't have enough counter-pressure to keep your violin on your shoulder? When you look at violinists it looks so easy... totally wrong!!!

Luckily I am not even dreaming about being classical violinist. For that I started way too late

Instead I can enjoy the clean sound of my violin's output since it's electric like electric guitar and can have whatever effects to use with it.


Here's a few of my favourite violin songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2HLRqRjT50
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUDhA4hXdS8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw8lgt5-wg4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhmVZvocTp0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-XWYcULwsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA3oPpH7KVg

[AnalogGuy]

accidently double post.... 

[Anian]

1. I made a mistake when buying a black guitar, it's never free of spots, smudges and dust, it always looks like I've been eating chips then trying to fill the whole surface with fingerprints
2. why doesn't the violin have marks on the neck? Or on that note stuff like bass guitars without frets (which I get to a point) or marks...why would you not want a note to be at least marked in general area on something that's a half a meter long
3. personally I like the violin better when it's used as an addition for something like a basic guitar/bass/drums setup or in an orchestra, than as a solo instrument
4. that violin looks really cool and I admire your ambition

[AnalogGuy]

1. I made a mistake when buying a black guitar, it's never free of spots, smudges and dust, it always looks like I've been eating chips then trying to fill the whole surface with fingerprints
2. why doesn't the violin have marks on the neck? Or on that note stuff like bass guitars without frets (which I get to a point) or marks...why would you not want a note to be at least marked in general area on something that's a half a meter long
3. personally I like the violin better when it's used as an addition for something like a basic guitar/bass/drums setup or in an orchestra, than as a solo instrument
4. that violin looks really cool and I admire your ambition

That's very good question. In violin, the markings don't really help you a lot since you can't actually see them that well because of the playing angle. They put markers only for beginners. I bought this one for my self-practice:



That's very clever design. It's not sticker but it sticks to itself so you just fold it into back of the neck and sits there firmly. Also you can very easily remove it away and since it's not sticker, it never leaves anything to violin.

[Calin Leafshade]

There is a saying amongst violin teachers.

"The first 10 years are the worst"