Violin
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"Holmes, will you stop playing that stupid thing and solve the case!?"
~ Dr. Watson on Violin
"I was fingering a Minor on the G-string"
~ Michael Jackson on The Disturbing Similarity Between his time as a musician and his present life
“I'll viol your in.”
"Violins are for sissies!"
~ Eddy on Violin
The violin (from Latin: violare, to outrage, injure) (also known as the small viola, the X small cello, and the XX small bass)is a stringed instrument. It has the highest range of the eight stringed instruments used in Western music. It was invented by Antonio Stradavius in 1537 B.C. Other Western stringed instruments are the triple bass, the double bass, the bass, sea bass, the half bass, the violoncello, and the viola. The violin is favoured over the other strings due to the fact the bass is too frequently mistaken as coffins, the violoncello is bulky and difficult to transport, and the viola attracts musicians who possess no talent.
The violin has four strings tuned in imperfect fourths, tuned from lowest to highest at the pitches E4, A4, D5, and G5 (the G string is a favorite among violinists, they just love the phrase relating to sul G). You can detune the strings by sucking the pegs that are located on the top of the thing. Some violins also have unfine tuners on the adjacent end of the pegs. Those tuners are pretty much for immidetialey self destructing the instrument and killing all in a 500 ft radius. The strings, woven from the hair of Space Otters are suspended over a bridge (preferably not the falling London Bridge); vibrations from the string are transmitted through the bridge to the body of the violin. The strings vibrate when the violinist rubs a bow against them. The bow is made from wood and whore's hair. The resulting sound is attractive to cats in estrus when the violin is well played. When the violin is badly played, the resulting sound is attractive to cows in estrus. Due these effects, the violin is often associated with sex and romance, hence the phrase "sex and violins on TV"
Due to rather nasty grudges between violinists and violists, controversy has risen up on whether a violin or a viola is more useful. The current general opinion is that, because it has a tendency to break eardrums with its annoying E string and is not nearly as effective in hitting younger siblings over the head, violins are much less useful than violas, which weren't particularly useful to begin with.
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[edit] Lifespan and Travels of My Violin
A Personal Account By Supreme Violinist of the Galaxy and Pathelogical Liar, Rhiannon Schmitt
It was a dark and stormy night. A feeble old man's hands shivered with excited anticipation as he carved away the last curled shaving from the ancient piece of maple.
"Magnifique!" he exclaimed at his masterpiece as he caressed it like a mother with a newborn child. He kissed the smooth wood then gently hung it from a wire attached to a gold-gilded chandelier. The shapely object swayed gently above the master's head. Flickering candlelight danced with the ox-hair brush as the violin received its first of more than twenty fine coats of hot oil varnish.
The violin was completed and labeled at the poignant stroke of midnight on the start of the year 1912 in Lyon, France. The year would later be known for other historic events such as the establishment of the Republic of China, the discovery of the South Pole, and more notably, the addition of prizes to Cracker Jack boxes. All these events are shadowed by the creation of a violin that would someday find its way to me.
My violin's rust-brown varnish had just finished curing when it was wrapped in fine silk and sent away in a wooden case. Due to highway congestion and no available carrier pigeons, French aviator Henri Seimet was asked to deliver the violin and made the first non-stop airplane flight from Paris to London in three hours.
The violin's first owner was the great-grandson of legendary violinist Nicolò Paganini who suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The violin's astonishing tone helped auditioners overlook the player's affliction and earned the him a gig with an 8-man band on a cruise ship. The Atlantic voyage was uneventful, unless you consider that last bit when the "Titanic" stuck an ice shelf and sank.
The violin's last tune with the band that night was a jolly rendition of "Roll Out the Barrel" before it was laid to rest in the coffin case, its owner saying a final goodbye. The ship went down in a fury of bubbles and miraculously the case came up out of the vessel with an infant sleeping peacefully on top. When the rescue ships arrived several hours later, infant Eva Braun and violin were in the care of another survivor on a nearby lifeboat: Margaret "Molly" Brown.
Eva was reunited with her family and would grow up to make poor decisions in politics and boyfriends. The violin, however, belonged to no one and was donated to a music society as a tax write-off. Joe Dawson, an eccentric race car driver, purchased the violin (also for tax reasons, though historians dispute this fact) and won the first Indianapolis 500 race with the violin in the trunk for good luck.
Soon afterwards Dawson lost his bet with Woodrow Wilson that the latter would not win the Presidential election; the winner took the violin. Wilson gave the violin to former ice hockey teammate Igor Stravinsky, who composed many of his best works using the violin. A year later, in 1913, the premiere of "The Rite of Spring" was poorly received and fights broke out in the audience. Stravinsky himself was so upset due to its reception that he fled the theater in mid-scene, leaving the violin behind in his haste.
Historians believe this is when my violin received extensive damage to the lower bout at the end-pin. The facts that follow are fuzzy due to poor documentation, but it is believed the violin was discovered in the theatre rubble and taken to a medicine man in Cuba who repaired the violin with guar gum and papyrus extracts. The dear violin spent the next forty-nine years passed from village virtuoso to virtuoso, who played for dignitaries, millionaires and other ridiculous people.
This happy holiday in the violin's life ended in 1962 when one village violinist, fearing the worst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, hid the violin in a fall-out shelter behind 200-cans of extra-juicy pork and beans. In 2005 the canned food's expiration date came and as the cans were being disposed of the violin was discovered again.
A compulsive gambler who worked with the fallout shelter's janitorial service stole the violin and put the violin up for auction on Ebay. It was won by my cousin's dog groomer's babysitter's nephew for 50 pesos. I heard there was a violin in the family and traded the guy an old lawnmower (he needed the wheels for a go-cart) for the violin, which is now safely in my possession and care.
Over this past year I have pondered over the mysterious label inside the violin, "Lyone 1912," and the spider-like cracks on the bottom that seem to be so expertly repaired using methods unknown to local luthiers. Hence I took it upon myself to extensively research the history of my violin and learned what little I could about the violin's history, which I have presented here truthfully to you.
Strangely, the people I've shared my flawless findings with have been disappointed as they're only marginally glamourous or mysterious. Sometimes the truth is pretty boring. I wish it could be more than that.
So now when people ask for stories about my violin's past, I lie and say my violin was found in Elvis' grasp in a Las Vegas hotel bathroom. That'll keep them interested.
[edit] Violins on Television
What's all this fuss I keep hearing about violins on television? Why don't parents want their kids to see violins on television? I thought the Leonard Bernstein concerts were just lovely, now, if they only show violins on television after ten o'clock at night, the little babies will all be asleep and they won't learn any music appreciation.
--Miss Emily Lattella
Violins on television has been a controversial issue since the late 1970s, when Miss Emily Lattella first brought violins on television to the forefront of the viewing public's attention in her landmark editorial piece entitled What's All This Fuss I keep Hearing About Violins on Television?. Citing the likely side-effects of increased guitar and bongo drum playing due to televised violins, Miss Lattella has helped tear down the veil of silence, a triple-mixed-metaphor which can only underly the seriousness of the problem.
Only a few short weeks following the airing of Miss Littella's editorial, an angry and defiant Itzhak Perlman played his instrument on live television during the 1978 Superbowl Halftime show, sending shockwaves across America at the so-called "instrument malfunction." Still, Littella herself referred to the incident as only an "eensie weenie, teeny tiny, itsy-bitsy little indescretion."
Over 35 years later, debate continues to rage as a five-second delay is now standard on all broadcasts where a stringed instrument may be exposed on-camera. The question of whether violins on television leads to violins in the home and in our society continues to be debated by sociologists, parents, and music majors alike.
[edit] Famous repertoire
- Partitions for solo violin by J. S. Bach (where a violin is sawed in half while being played)
- 24 Capris for solo violin by Paganini (professed by many to be the hardest, shortest pants ever performed)
- The Four Seasonings concerti by Vivaldi
- The Hyundai Sonata in A (the only Korean sonata in the rep)
- Concerto in A Minor by Vivaldi
- Concerto in G Minor by Antonio Vivaldi (Sounds exactly the same as Concerto in A minor, only in G minor)
- Twinkle Variations and Theme by Sue Zukini (see Suzuki Method)
- and a shitload of pieces written for violin that have been cheaply ripped off from other instruments (namely the viola)
[edit] Political relationships with China
The two-stringed erhu is the Chinese equivalent to the violin. Cultural exchanges initiated by Nixon between China and the United States culminated in a famous musical competition between the violinist Joachim Pearlmann and the erhu-player Zhu Zhong, which was held in a kitchen in 1970. This event resulted in over 200 human fatalities, 500 instances of feline sexual unions, and 600 instances of bovine sexual unions.
The competition between Pearlmann and Zhu was a nexus of life, death, fertility, and art.
[edit] The Typical Violinist
- Is Asian
- Was forced to take lessons at age 6 months
- Is Asian
- Practices for 7 hours a day because of strict Asian parents
- Is Asian
- did I mention they are Asian?
- produce horrific noise
- is Asian
- Chinasian
- Little Chinese Girls who win every single competetion known to man
- Alex Jang of Winnipeg Manitoba
- Chinese?
[edit] Other types of Violinists
- Violinist who gets really good at the violin, then realizes that there are about a million violinists better that him/her, so he/she then switches to the viola, thus becoming the best violist in the world.
- Violinist who sits in the low register and plays really quietly, hoping that no one will notice that she sucks.
- Violinist who's really bad at the violin, but is secretly really good at the cello.
- Violinist who's really good at the violin, but is secretly better at the cello.
- The only white violinist in an all-Asian orchestra, often considered a prodigy for being able to play at the level of all those Asians.
- The younger sister who creates ear-splitting noises to annoy her brother and all others who come into contact with her.
- Violinist who gets into the high register of every single orchestra just because he/she was concertmaster in his/her school orchestra his/her freshman year of high school
- The violinist who is jealous of the person above
- The annoying stand partner that constantly tells you not to play with open strings (even when the sheet music clearly says "play with open strings")
- The violinist who thinks everything sounds better played spiccato
- The violinist who sits in the back of the section, yet plays really loudly because they think that they are better than everyone else and want everyone else to know.
- Herman, the violin-playing African elephant
- Violinist who thinks that the E string sounds better than the rest of the other strings, so only plays E.
