Violin songs that are different from fiddle or classical?

Question

I've been playing violin for four years (im 12 now) and lately i really dont like the music. I want to play some rock or pop but something besides classical, fiddle, country. My teacher loves all that stuff and shes the only one around really. I was thinking about getting a electric violin, but id still need some good music. My brother plays the electric guitar and he plays ACDC Led Zepplin and really cool songs like that that I want to play. My mom still wants me to play violin and im not a guitar player for sure. IM SO CONFUSED!!! He does really cool songs like the immigrant song, the pepsi songs and teh black eyed peas. Do you know where any good sheet music, downloads or websites are? thank you so much for anyhelp

Answer 1

After four years, you're still probably not a very accomplished violinist. I'd suggest keeping at it, even though it may seem like a chore at this point. When you're older, you'll appreciate it.

There's nothing that says you can't play the guitar too. In fact, the guitar would be a good adjunct to the violin, since it would give you a feel for harmony that the violin won't.

Alternatively, you could get a mandolin, which is tuned exactly the same as a violin, but picked similar to a guitar.

At this stage of your life, your goal should be to become a musician, not merely a person who plays an instrument. Once you are a musician, you'll be able to teach yourself other instruments whenever you get the urge to learn. There are a lot of basic skills that are shared among people who play all types of musical instruments - once you learn the skills with one instrument, it becomes much easier to become accomplished with other, additional instruments.

One thing you should definitely do is tell your teacher your concerns. She can get you whatever music you want, and structure your lessons in a way that is more satisfying for you. However, my advice would be to get a solid grounding in classical music, since just about every other type of music is a subset of the totality that is classical music.

There is plenty of sheet music available on line, but you have to know where to look for it. A good bittorrent tracker like demonoid.com is a place to start, but there are IRC channels devoted to sheet-music fileservers, as well as UseNet newsgroups.

Answer 2

As a violinist myself, I usually play melodies to songs I like by ear. Or sometimes, when I'm bored, I'll look up guitar chords and pluck them. This requires basic music theory though. You could try looking up piano scores and playing the melody, too.

The problem with bands that have violin like Yellowcard is that the violin part is... not very exciting. It's definitely more fun to pick songs you like and figure them out by ear. You could even get your brother to play the chords while you play the melody. This will help with ear training if you are already doing theory or if you plan on pursuing violin in the future.

Answer 3

Ever play any gypsy music? Like maybe"Dark Eyes"? Here are three Gypsy musicians you should listen to: Stephane Grappeli Django Reinhardt Tarif Haidouks They are all among the best in the world. I'm sure you can obtain sheet music for some of these but a lot of it you have to have the ear for to play it right. Listen, listen, listen. If you learn to play only 3 or 4 of these complicated melodies you will then easily play any rock and roll, blues, jazz,etc. riff you can think of.

Answer 4

There is a group called Darling Violetta. They do the opening theme song to the t.v. show Angel. It is all violin and personally I think it is a very beautiful rocked out piece. Here is the link

Answer 5

Try music from a group called Barrage, it IS a fiddle group, but it's completely different from most fiddle music you typically hear and there is some awesome music in their books. If you ever get the chance to see them in concert, I would also reccomend that. Here is their website: http://barrage.org/index.html
Check under the shop for their books.

Answer 6

Look up the artist andrew bird. He plays more pop/rock music and is amazing with his violin. I think you would really like him.

Answer 7

There were and are several classically trained violinists that have crossed genres into rock and jazz/rock fusion/funk.. Here's a few that I think you might really enjoy;
Jean Luc Ponty: He really made a name for himself in the late 60's right through the 70's. In my opinion his material from around '74-'82 was his best. He was one of the first to electrify the violin.
http://www.ponty.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Ponty
Here's some Jean Luc videos, some old some new:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCdH5ipBb5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcJ_1f5QsNI
Cool montage of his albums set to music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkCC6dIT5Cg
At times he could make his violin sound like a synthesizer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAILS16N4UQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ-ciwXSYbw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNhd__gfmoc
Imaginary Voyage part 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbYZc6pKWAI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3iw_S8uvJQ
There were many great fusion bands from the 70's that featured virtuoso violinists. One band was call 'The Dixie Dregs, not too many vids by them though.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgY23689RWo
Also check out 'Mahavishnu Orchestra', another great fusion band featuring guitar virtuoso John McGlaughlin, and Jean Luc Ponty played on a few of their albums as well.
I played violin when I was younger as well, and I really got tired of the classics, much to my parents dismay. I found satisfaction playing and listening to jaz fusion.
This Canadian guy was verging on punk rock, but he is also a
classically trained violinist. He founded the rock band FM in the 1970's. Their claim to fame was that they never used electric guitars, only electric violins an electric mandolins!
Phasors on Stun by FM:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn17qiva0gk
When you listen to their album 'Black Noise' it's quite amazing, because you could swear there was some guitar happening in there. Their violin/mandolin players name was 'Nash the Slash'. He then left FM and carved out a fairly successful career as a solo artist. he made a lot of weird experimental music using his violin. His trademark was his bandaged face:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DxIRIR145A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZEokH_XcJc
This is funny, because the guy doing the interview is none other than CNN correspondent John Roberts (he's Canadian). John used to be known as J.D Roberts back in the 70's and early 80's in Canada. Check out the young CNN John Roberts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMnklUF43lI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFfJJA6xevQ
Nash the Slash with the Canadian punk band DOA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1ToE6vcA2Q
There are many other great violin rock bands from the 70's that featured violin as their main instrument as well. Maybe try googling just that?

Answer 8

When comparing piano lessons online, look for what makes a program unique. It may look like all methods are the same, especially when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. The following information is going to be very valuable to your success in choosing a robust learning program. Read here https://tr.im/howtoplaypiano

Answer 9

There is a good song called Bitter Sweet and it is done by Apocolyptica and it has good violin parts in it!

Answer 10

theres this band called yellow card and they have some songs that youses violin solos. but from what your used to playing im not sure you can handle it