Bands with Violinists? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

Nobody seems to have mentioned this lot so far.

The violinist is Kate Bush's nephew.

Vertu (Karen Briggs, Violin)

The wonderful Forgas Band Phenomena

Ian

Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on Progrock.com

https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-avant-jazzcore-happy-hour/

(Sorry ... didn't realize this was so old!)

Guldbamsen wrote:

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Ok along to those recommendations. I´ve got a pretty eclectic taste, so I´ll post some different ones for you:

Roxy Music - Out of the Blue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcyvKQ5hNzE
Amon Düül ll - Soap Shop Rock http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0DkLDNSVks
String Driven Thing - Heartfeeder http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq9I_xTFjys
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The violin is such a beautiful instrument, but it can also be gritty and menacing. I really love it like that.

Eddie Jobson in Roxy Music, also played violin in Curved Air as well as keyboards.

Kris Karrer in AD2 is almost too much, and all the way to "Vive La Trance", his playing is out of this world, and totally off the charts.

Grahame Smith was in String Driven Thing for their best known years, but in many ways, his best work was done with Peter Hammill, where you can even find him in concert with him by himself, which is insane, but tells you what a great musician can do with his instrument. I also love the work he did in at one Van der Graaf Generator album, which is outstanding.

Jean Luc Ponty, in many ways is the man that has helped the violin explode in the scene, though his stuff is considered "jazz" and sometimes it is better thought of as "fusion". For his stuff, you must get the "Return to Forever" Live CD from their recent tour. It was fantastic to say the least, and blows out so many progressive bands, it's not funny. RTF blew out and made ZpZ look like an idiot band!

I like Simon House, who has helped Hawkwind so much over the years and create some magnificent backgrounds as well in keyboards.

Papa John Creach was well known in California but ended up getting even more famous with Jefferson Airplane, and gave them more character and quality.

Laurie Anderson was all about experimental synthesizers and later violin. Her shows were weird, strange, literary, off its rocker and not exactly something a progressive audience tends to enjoy, since we love our top ten way too much to appreciate other stuff.

David LaFlamme, was the violinist behind "White Bird" a massive hit in the late 60's for the band "It's a Beautiful Day". Both of the band's firts albums fit very well in any "progressive" collection, with American artists. The song even had a shorter version for the AM radio crowd, and the new FM band used to love to show off AM Radio as crap by playing the long version (along with Light My Fire and all that!).

Darryl Way is worth the mention (Curved Air) for a couple of things that are fun and great at the same time. "Vivaldi with Cannons" in both the 1st album and in the Live album. If you have the guts to do something like that (or Smith's Tympany for the Devil") you should be ready for prime time!

But it is kind of unfair to not appreciate other folks out there, as mentioned before.

Edited by moshkito - May 31 2014 at 15:03

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

I love the violin on this album by VDGG

Violinist from String Driven Thing

hear some of it here

www.youtube.com/watch?v=36b-_xPTq8Q

Edited by AtomicCrimsonRush - May 26 2014 at 07:44

Boud Deun!

Check out some of Don 'Sugarcane' Harris's work with Frank Zappa: "Gumbo Variations", "Directly From my Heart to You", "Little House I Used to Live In", "Sharleena" ("Lost Episodes" version), "50/50", etc. He had an extremely dirty, bluesy sound on those tracks that is very unique and very different from Jean-luc Ponty's.

Continue the prog discussion here: http://zombyprog.proboards.com/index.cgi ...

mrweiner wrote:

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Well said! Yeah I definitely understand that. However, throughout my musical career I've never really been the best at listening to people who are masters in their own right, and internalizing what they do. That's something that I want to work toward now.

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The one thing a teacher can NOT help you with is ... what it takes to "be" that master. The academic view is that you play notes better than anyone else, which is not necessarily true ... because then you get the new "wave" and they do things different and they become the new "master".

What helps me, is learning and reading about how they thought and worked with others and the best scene to take a look at, and see what they did, is the French scene from the 30's to the 60's which is magnificently documented by all of them, something that rock music thinks they can do strictly by sales and "Number 1's".

In the end, you will find only one thing ... it's about how YOU express yourself, and the day that your instrument "turns over" and it becomes just an extension of your hand, or arm, you know that you are a "master" ...

From an stage/acting perspective, I will tell you what is very good for an exercise ... I used to take one set of lines and have the actor say it ... with hate ... now say it with love ... like say it like you don't care ... now say it like you don't give a $hit ... and so on ... create as many of these as possible .... it's still the same music, but HOW you express it all of a sudden is the difference, and one almost would say ... wow ... it's a totally different piece of music expressed this way, or that way.

The next thing that happens once you learn this a bit, which is a fun exercise (you should always do this with vacuum cleaners and brooms and such with folks around you!), is that one day you create a piece of music ... and you have the notes written down ... then you go play them ... and you change the notes, because this is the way you want to play them and express your piece ... and now you know what the :heavy" and the "good" ones are all about ... the music is "seconday" (so to speak) and you concern yourself with HOW to bring it off.

This, of course, is the part that English instructors in college hate about Theater people and love to say that theater and film doesn't know anything about Iambic Pentameter or poetry ... and of course, the theater folks flick the finger and say ... yeah ... you wrote history and the laws of man, and the Bible!

mrweiner wrote:

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In my opinion, the best way to create something new and exciting is to understand those who came before you.

That should, probably, be a "maybe", because there are times that ... there is no understanding, as the "source" of that "doing" is not in the area of the "mind" or "thinking" ... and this is where improvisation and intuition take a massive hit in almost all music. It does wayyyyyyyyyyy better in literature and art, than it does in music. But, sometimes the hard price one pays for that individuality is ... difficult.

For an example, read the post I have on Patti Smith's book and the comments around it. That is called, a very poetic quotidian study of the time and place that created something ... and again, we have to stop with the ideas, to allow it to flow before we can even find what the whole thing is about ... which might never be visible anyway.

This is the hard part, and why I always say, the answer is inside of YOU, and your relationship to the "moment" ... not even the music at all ... which, of course, is a set of terms that some music instructors and musicians themselves don't like ... and immediately get defensive and state ... you can't do that, and in the end, that is simply a perceptual limitation on the player's part and has NOTHING to do with the composer or the teacher, other than ideas.

Also remember that some teachers just want the attention so they can get more students, and I'm ok with that if their interest and love is the kids themselves, otherwise get another teacher, in my book!

Edited by moshkito - November 23 2011 at 16:15

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

BUBU