The violin repairer down the road would hate me for this... no loss
I was thinking about the idea of making an electric violin with frets and guitar tuning to make it easy for guitar players to get violin sounds without having to call in the professionals.
Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull had a violin fretted for writing string parts in the early '70s. Apparently his request wasn't met fondly either
I might save up some parts from dead Ashton violins and see how it goes...
A play on words, or words on play
Last chapter, verse in the final act
Words well scripted, each sentence choking
Inaudible gag, blanket which suffocates
As you eat another's words
Malnourished, you starve.
Yes, why not a lined fretless violin, with baritone uke tuning? Maybe basing such an instrument on a viola would be best? I’d certainly be interested in such a beast, providing it was inexpensive.
Well frets are good because its much easier to chord with frets than without. Not that chording is at all easy with a bow
When I speak of guitar tuning I'm referring to the interval between strings and direction rather than the actual pitch they're tuned to. Its the interval that all our usual chrods, scales and whatnot are based on. The point being to make the smallest possible transition for a guitar player to make passable violin noises.
The tuning itself and the pitch shouldn't be a huge transition - guitar players can pick up playing the mandolin and that's tuned in the same pitch.
Would be quite interesting as it would certainly make it easier than playing it fretless. I suspect fretting a violin neck would be much harder than fretting a guitar neck given the contour of a violin neck to allow for bowing. Hence not sure about the feasbility of playing chords with a bow unless its a flat unconventional neck - you can play more than one string at a time (eg: double-stopping) - but playing a full chord may be a bit harder
I woke up this morning and said to myself
Self what a great day it is for Rock and Roll ...
Speaking of dead Ashtons Ash...any hollow bodies coming your way w/busted bits? Have a cunning plan...just need a body to complete it...no corpses please.
"Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible god and destroys a visible nature. Unaware that this nature he's destroying is this god he's worshipping." - Hubert Reeves
My definition of 'chording' in this context is simply more than one note, so yeah double stops are exactly what I mean. The bow can only do two adjacent strings at once anyway. But because it would be a solid electric, sustain would probably be alot more than an acoustic violin with a sound post.
The tuning may not be a huge transition for some people, but why not make it no transition at all and use guitar intervals? Violin and mandolin players can just make do with a normal violin
Fretting the tight radiussed fingerboard would be much more difficult than a guitar fretboard, but it can be done.
U, yes I have an Ashton ASA2000 available complete with fake bigsby. The bigsby tail hinge is cracked, but that doesn't affet much. They're not too shitty with decent pickups in them.
1964 wrote:Ash, what do you think of the Ashton AR282 and ASR282?
I haven't seen many of them, but they seem to be a bit of a lottery. One was total rubbish, but the last one was pretty good. Very good for the money. The finishing and fretting is poo, but the wood is not too bad and with some decent pickups they would sound nice in a darkened room.
