Virtuoso Violin is a violin-playing machine, invented by Fred Paroutaud for QRS Music Technologies, the same company that produced the first MIDI-compatible player piano. It was first unveiled February 13, 1998. [1]
Virtuoso Violin is a violin-playing machine, invented by Fred Paroutaud for QRS Music Technologies, the same company that produced the first MIDI-compatible player piano. It was first unveiled February 13, 1998. [1]
The Virtuoso uses an electromagnet instead of fingering the strings. The electromagnet's position changes the behavior of the vibrating string to attain the desired pitch. [2]
The Virtuoso is designed to play a real violin, although its setup requires the strings to be restrung and the bridge to be removed and replaced with a mechanical bridge which controls the string oscillation and bow movement. [2]
The Virtuoso Violin is capable of playing standard MIDI files. [2]
The Virtuoso Violin was debuted at the Frankfurt Music Trade Show, and guests were both excited about the new invention and confused as to how it worked. [3] The novelty of the digital-to-analog player violin has been a huge hit, and the Virtuoso Violin has been used as a replacement to the concertmaster soloist at concerts mainly for show reasons. [4]
The price of the violin was originally estimated at under $10,000 just before its release. [1] In 2003, its price was $12,500 [5] and has risen since to nearly $22,000. [6]
The sound projected by the Virtuoso Violin lacks the same quality found in a human violinist's playing, largely due to the inability for the device to spontaneously play emotionally. [7]
The double bass, also known simply as the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra. The Double bass has a similar structure to the cello.
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickups to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical signals, which ultimately are reproduced as sound by loudspeakers. The sound can be shaped or electronically altered to achieve different timbres or tonal qualities, making it quite different from an acoustic guitar. Often, this is done through the use of effects such as reverb, distortion and "overdrive"; the latter is considered to be a key element of electric blues guitar music and rock guitar playing.
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing the strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.
In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:
The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700, in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings.
The violin, sometimes known as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular use. The violin typically has four strings, usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings. It can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and, in specialized cases, by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow.
The viola ( vee-OH-lə, alsovy-OH-lə, Italian: [ˈvjɔːla, viˈɔːla]) is a string instrument that is bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. It is slightly larger than a violin and has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth above) and the cello (which is tuned an octave below). The strings from low to high are typically tuned to C3, G3, D4, and A4.
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
In music, a bow is a tensioned stick which has hair coated in rosin affixed to it. It is moved across some part of a musical instrument to cause vibration, which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, such as the violin, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones.
In music, inharmonicity is the degree to which the frequencies of overtones depart from whole multiples of the fundamental frequency.
The gadulka is a traditional Bulgarian bowed string instrument. Alternate spellings are "gǎdulka", "gudulka" and "g'dulka". Its name comes from a root meaning "to make noise, hum or buzz". The gadulka is an integral part of Bulgarian traditional instrumental ensembles, commonly played in the context of dance music.
An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument intentionally made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body. It can also refer to a violin fitted with an electric pickup of some type, although "amplified violin" or "electro-acoustic violin" are more accurate in that case.
A MIDI controller is any hardware or software that generates and transmits Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data to MIDI-enabled devices, typically to trigger sounds and control parameters of an electronic music performance.
Making an instrument of the violin family, also called lutherie, may be done in different ways, many of which have changed very little in nearly 500 years since the first violins were made. Some violins, called "bench-made" instruments, are made by a single individual, either a master maker, or an advanced amateur working alone. Several people may participate in the making of a "shop-made" instrument, working under the supervision of a master. This was the preferred method of old violin makers who always put their names on violins crafted by their apprentices. Various levels of "trade violin" exist, often mass-produced by workers who each focus on a small part of the overall job, with or without the aid of machinery.
A violin consists of a body or corpus, a neck, a finger board, a bridge, a soundpost, four strings, and various fittings. The fittings are the tuning pegs, tailpiece and tailgut, endpin, possibly one or more fine tuners on the tailpiece, and in the modern style of playing, usually a chinrest, either attached with the cup directly over the tailpiece or to the left of it. There are many variations of chinrests such as clamped to the body in the center, on either side of the tailpiece as with a Guaneri style chinrest or to the left of the tailpiece.
Playing the violin entails holding the instrument between the jaw and the collar bone. The strings are sounded either by drawing the bow across them (arco), or by plucking them (pizzicato). The left hand regulates the sounding length of the strings by stopping them against the fingerboard with the fingers, producing different pitches.
Jonathan Anthony Rose is an Australian violinist, composer, and multimedia artist. Rose's work is centered in the experimental music known as free improvisation, where he has created large environmental multimedia works, built experimental musical instruments, and improvised violin concertos with accompanying orchestra. He has been described by Tony Mitchell as "undoubtedly the most exploratory, imaginative and iconoclastic violin player who has lived in Australia."
The Mills Novelty Company, Incorporated of Chicago was once a leading manufacturer of coin-operated machines, including slot machines, vending machines, and jukeboxes, in the United States. Between about 1905 and 1930, the company's products included the Mills Violano-Virtuoso and its predecessors, celebrated machines that automatically played a violin and, after about 1909, a piano. By 1944, the name of the company had changed to Mills Industries, Incorporated. The slot machine division was then owned by Bell-O-Matic Corporation. By the late 1930s, vending machines were being installed by Mills Automatic Merchandising Corporation of New York.
Violin acoustics is an area of study within musical acoustics concerned with how the sound of a violin is created as the result of interactions between its many parts. These acoustic qualities are similar to those of other members of the violin family, such as the viola.
Billy Contreras is an American jazz violinist and bluegrass fiddler, multi-instrumentalist, session player and educator.