When we think of genres and styles of violin music, many of us immediately think of orchestra music or Vivaldi and his famous violin concertos. But there are so many other genres and styles of violin music out there, especially today!
For this reason, I thought it might be fun to put together a little blog article that would perhaps either remind you of other genres of violin music you already knew about or to introduce you to new kinds of styles or genres that you didn’t know were out there!
There are all kinds of music genre fusions happening that have never come together before, so it is always interesting to keep up with what’s new and on the fringes of new music genres. Plus, there are past fusions that have happened and have seen their prime time but never took off to be mainstream.
Who knows, maybe some of you might find it fun to be in the know about these things and maybe pick up a new interested! So let’s take a look at three kinds of fun or interesting styles of violin music out there!
1. Classical Indian Violin Music
The violin in Indian classical violin music looks just like the violin of the western tradition. The main differences are in the tuning and how you hold the instrument.
When playing Indian classical music, the violin is first tuned from G-D-A-E in traditional western music to resembling common scordatura
The second main difference is how you hold the instrument. In Indian classical music, the violin player sits cross-legged on the floor with one leg extended out and the violin resting against the extended foot! How different is that?!
Here is an example of Indian classical music with the violin!
2. Jazz Violin Music
We don’t typically think of the violin when we think of jazz music, but when you hear it you will probably be like, “oh ya…”. It has a more familiar sound than name, so to speak. You can Google search “jazz violin” and find all kinds of artists out there who play this kind of style!
Especially in modern times, the electric violin is more commonly used in this genre than in traditional classical music for example. Have you ever seen an electric violin? It’s pretty cool because you can add all kinds of crazy-cool sound effects to it. I’m going to include two videos for you to watch of jazz violin: one with a regular acoustic violin and the other with an electric violin!
3. Gypsy Jazz with Violin
This one is cool! Think, American jazz music meets Romanian gypsy music in France. And then think jazz but instead of all the brass rhythms of Louis Armstrong and other jazz bands of the times, it’s just guitar, an upright bass, a violin, maybe an accordion. Just a very different instrumental set up than the jazz from the United States!
Jean “Django” Reinhardt, a Romani guitarist in Paris in the 1930’s, is given the credit for the rise of gyspy jazz. He had heard music from the American jazz players and became known as the first jazz musician to come out of Europe. Check out one of his standard pieces called, “Minor Swing”.
Appreciating Different Styles of Violin Music
There really are so many other styles of violin music out there! But this article is only meant to sample a taste of breaking out of our stereotypical ideas of styles of music that uses the violin. Go explore the web and you can find all kinds of new styles or old styles but that wouldn’t necessarily traditionally incorporate violin. Like rock music or electronic music! Peoples’ creativity out there is truly amazing!
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