Fiddle, accordion, and a singing drummer. Seven minutes and fifty seven seconds of Gypsy music from Ukraine, live in Budapest. The real thing. Totally wailing. Kickass. Técső Banda at Kertem.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Oct 10, 2009 - 23 comments

Violinist Paul Dateh and turntablist Inka One bring it. Violin and turntables, like peanut butter and chocolate. If there are equivalent examples of where music is headed in the 21st century I'd like to see them. For a bit of a background on this, here's an interview with Paul Dateh the violinist. [more inside]
posted by jeremias on Oct 9, 2009 - 31 comments

You've seen the national anthem sung at baseball games, but have you ever heard the national anthem played on a baseball bat? (SLYT)
posted by ZenMasterThis on Aug 17, 2009 - 33 comments

Looping, live: David Ford, Imogen Heap, KT Tunstall x2, Dub FX, Ed Alleyne-Johnson
posted by flatluigi on Apr 7, 2009 - 50 comments

Beethoven's Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 9 in A, Op. 47 (audio) was originally dedicated to the black violin virtuoso George Bridgetower after he gave such a brilliant rendering of the piece that prompted Beethoven to jump from his seat and embrace him. Bridgetower was a musical child prodigy and composer who, despite rampant racial prejudice, reached "unusual heights in the music world of his day". Having lived and performed in major European cities such as London, Paris, and Vienna, he would later die forgotten and in poverty. A personal disagreement with Bridgetower led Beethoven to dedicate the sonata to the famous violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer instead who, incidentally, never played it in public deeming it “outrageously unintelligible”. [more inside]
posted by lucia__is__dada on Mar 27, 2009 - 10 comments

What gives Stradivarius violins their rich ethereal tones? Scientists clash in theories, attributing the sound quality to wood density, chemical treatments, the "Little Ice Age," even the sun. The mystery continues. Current Strad owners include Itzhak Perlman and Anne-Sophie Mutter. "[T]he great violins are, ounce for ounce, among the most valuable commodities in the world... Almost alone among investments, important violins have proved immune to economic downturns." Today, top Strads can fetch more than $6 million. But some wonder whether Antonio Stradivari's violins truly deserve their "best in class" reputation.
posted by terranova on Dec 31, 2008 - 19 comments

Gene Weingarten, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his story on Joshua Bell's busking stunt in a D.C. subway station, tells the story of an earlier busker performing in similar circumstances. With a spooky surprise ending: [more inside]
posted by fiercecupcake on Jun 30, 2008 - 28 comments

Alexander "Eck" Robertson (1886 - 1975) was one hell of a fine fiddler, friend. He made, in 1922, what many country music historians consider the first commercial recording of country music. And now some kind soul has made ol' Eck a MySpace page where you can get a taste (five tastes, actually) of some of that bodacious bowing. Then head over to Ragtime Annie's place. What? She's Done Gone? She must've run off with the Arkansaw Traveler. Guess you'll have to make do with that Turkey In The Straw. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on May 2, 2008 - 3 comments

Sarasate Plays "Zigeunerweisen". A recording from 1904.
posted by plexi on Dec 5, 2007 - 2 comments

another beautiful guitarist from louisiana Such a wise cat he even could replace t-bone walker in a minute. Well, so he said with his enthralling voice. He was such a beautiful singer. Unique violin player. He disappeared in the aftermath of hurricane katrina. Peace.
posted by nicolin on Sep 1, 2007 - 15 comments

David Juritz a leading violinist left his house with a backpack, fiddle and completely empty wallet at the start of a 60,000-mile, twenty-five-country, round-the-world busk. He is raising money for Musequality (read about some of their support efforts, like the M-Lisada Brass Band). His comment about Berlin being a terrible city for busking put me in mind of this post about Joshua Bell. You can donate here if you feel so inclined.
posted by tellurian on Aug 14, 2007 - 5 comments

MusicMoose wants "to provide the world with free, useful music lessons, and a community based site to help back it all up." The site contains hundreds of free video music lessons (often containing notation and/or tablature) with a distinct focus on acoustic and bluegrass music, all taught by some pretty badass pickers (including the astonishingly good mandolin shredder Anthony Hannigan). There are also obligatory but very useful forums. Takeaway: the whole thing is free and you don't have to register to watch the lessons.
posted by kosem on Jun 29, 2007 - 15 comments

Have you ever stopped to listen? I do, when it's not bad, always. I've missed trains, I've been late. I've given all the money I had on me. I've been reminded of - X -. I wish I had been there; I fucking love that Chaconne. It's like the perfect prayer.
posted by From Bklyn on Apr 7, 2007 - 105 comments

Long before Robert Johnson ever went down to the crossroads, violinist & composer Niccolo Paganini was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical ability. Evidence against this theory: Paganini's 5th Caprice actually prevented the devil from stealing The Karate Kid's soul (the devil settled for stealing Ralph Macchio's career instead). Evidence in favor of this theory: When played on acoustic guitar, the virtuosity in his 24th Caprice really seems supernaturally inspired. For my money, however, the perfect storm of ominous music & stringed instruments comes together in this version of Carmina Burana (mp3 direct download), arranged for solo banjo.
posted by jonson on Sep 27, 2006 - 35 comments

So these guys built a crazy y-shaped guitar that can produce sounds that sound like a regular guitar or a steal drum_[wav]. There are more sound examples on that page. Meanwhile Mari Kimura has figured out a way to produce sub harmonics on a regular violin, extending the range down an octave, producing some [intresting_[mp3] results. via]
posted by delmoi on Jul 13, 2006 - 15 comments

ViolinMP3 [Violins; MP3s]
posted by Pretty_Generic on Oct 1, 2005 - 23 comments

How to build your own violin, in 45 pictures. Or for guitarists: build your own hollow-body, solid-body electric, or steel guitar. For the budget-minded, PVC flutes. How about bagpipes? No? Surely you cannot resist the tribal sounds of the home-built didgeridoo? Other eclectic (and not so eclectic) home-built instruments.
posted by Civil_Disobedient on Sep 26, 2004 - 10 comments

Her name was Courage & is written Olga "Olga" (.pdf file in main link) is Olga Rudge, violinist, first promoter of the Vivaldi Renaissance, and longtime companion of the poet Ezra Pound. Pound maintained a complicated and delicate balance between the two most significant women in his life, Olga and his wife Dorothy Shakespear (who, among other things, was the daughter of Yeats's mistress). ‘‘Paris is where EP and OR met, and everything in my life happened,’’ Olga (listen to her voice here) said later of the chance encounter with Ezra at 20, rue Jacob, in the salon of Natalie Barney. They were together for fifty years, through the dark-night years of Pound's madness (arrested in 1945 for treason, deemed unable to stand trial and sent to an American mental institution, he once suggested to the UPI bureau chief in Rome that the United States trade Guam for some sound films of Japanese Noh plays, asked Truman many times to make him Ambadassor to Japan or Moscow; Guy Davenport reports dining with him one evening and all Ez said was "gnocchi"), until the poet's death in 1972. She lived on for another quarter century, turning up at conferences of Pound scholars --as far afield as Hailey, Idaho, Pound's birthplace, where she gave a lecture in the local movie theater. "Write about Pound", she told publishers who asked her to write her autobiography. (more inside, with Cantos)
posted by matteo on Jul 8, 2004 - 15 comments

Jon Rose isn't your average Australian violinist. He builds his own violins and plays the hell out of them.
posted by shinybeast on Mar 22, 2002 - 5 comments

Extraordinary violinist Isaac Stern dead at age 81 An abridged biography can be found here. As a casual listener, I mourn his death and hope that the gap this has left in music education can be filled.
posted by ttrendel on Sep 23, 2001 - 2 comments

Musical instruments are pretty good examples of form following function. Over time, they evolve into standard shapes. Occaisionally, some people push the instruments in new directions. Other times, they run at right angles to reality
posted by plinth on Nov 17, 2000 - 1 comment