Whispered - Thousand Swords

If you do a search for "samurai metal" on the internet, you will inevitably run across Finnish band Whispered's album Thousand Swords. This concept album about the story of a samurai is a hidden gem among metal albums. Incorporating the best of melodic death metal, extreme metal, and symphonic metal with a fusion of traditional asian instruments, this is a unique and thoroughly enjoyable album. Now, you may ask, how does a violin come into play here? The violin is sometimes imitating the traditional Chinese instrument, the erhu, and sometimes adds to the symphonic soundscape of this album's epic story. The violins on this album are played by none other than Olli Vanska, violinist of Turisas.

The violins are most noticably featured on the songs "Blade in the Snow" and "Dead Cold Inside."

Website: whisperedband.com

"Blade in the Snow" is their 15 minute long epic finale, definitely worth listening to all the way through - this song is a masterpiece!

Photo Credit

Sirenia

Sirenia is a female-fronted gothic metal band from Stavanger, Norway. Starting out with a very traditional gothic/doom metal sound, I fell in love with the style of At Sixes and Sevens, which incorporated a throwback to traditional goth rock. Later on the band evolved into more of a symphonic gothic metal sound and the female vocals took on more prominence. (I personally believe that their current vocalist, Ailyn, is the "hottest chick in metal," but then again I am a girl so take that for all it's worth. )
Despite not having a permanent violin player, they have been surprisingly consistent in employing different session violinists on their albums. These session musicians were: Pete Johansen (on album At Sixes and Sevens), Anne Verdot (An Elixir for Existence), and Stefanie Valentin (The 13th Floor, The Enigma of Life).

  

They have violins on almost all their albums (see those mentioned above) but my personal favorite is At Sixes and Sevens, I recommend giving it a listen! They have had live violinists in the past, but I haven't seen this in recent shows. In the live footage linked below, Pete Johansen is playing what looks to be a Zeta Strados electric violin, however, the violin on the recording for At Sixes and Sevens sounds acoustic. Anne Verdot's violin recordings sound acoustic as well. Stephanie Valentin is pictured on her homepage with an electric violin (possibly also a Zeta Strados?), and it sounds like she recorded with one as well.

Sirenia Official Site: sirenia.no

Recommended Songs for Violin Listening: "In a Manica," "At Sixes and Sevens," "Voices Within,"
 "The Mind Maelstrom"

A live clip from 2003, featuring Pete Johansen on electric violin:



Photo Credits: OHP

How to Play Violin in a Metal Band - Headbanging

When I first joined a metal band as a violin player, I had grand illusions of headbanging in the windmill fashion a la Amon Amarth, until I realized that a violin, unlike a guitar, is held up by your chin and hence makes the art of headbanging considerably more difficult. So how does a violinist in a metal band headbang, or move in general, when they are on stage? I think this would be better explained by showing you examples than having you read my writing about it, but here's just a few quick tips before I get on with the videos:

1. Move your body as a whole to give the illusion that you are headbanging instead of actually moving your head separately.
2. As a violinist, you probably won't be playing during every part of every song, so headbang when you're not playing.
3. Beware of long hair getting on your violin strings after you headbang, or else you may try to bow over your own hair and your instrument will not make any noise.
4. Folk metal violinists have the option of "dancey" footwork during upbeat and festive songs, which usually works quite well.
5. Power stance is always a good thing.
6. And then there are the electric violins with shoulder straps, like the Stingray or Flying V types, which will allow for freer head movements.

And without further ado...

Examples:

Meri from Eluveitie is a good example of points 2 and 4:


Rose Noire, a gothic darkwave duet from Japan has good stage movements and headbanging that would also work in a gothic metal band as well:



And then there's Michael Schulmann, who showcases pretty much all the movement possibilities the shoulder strap violin has to offer:



Comments or suggestions? Please comment below!

News - Korpiklaani Violinist Interview

Korpiklaani released an interview today with their new violinist Tuomas Rounakari on their facebook page, in which he talks about his musical background as well as his relationship with nature and experience being a shaman. 



Q: When and how did you start playing the violin?


A: My father owned a violin. He played it when he was young, but not anymore when I was a kid. There was always music in our house, my parents loved music and listened it all the time. When I was about 6 or 7 years old I started to play violin. At that age I was drawn strongly to classical music. I really loved it, and Bach was my absolute favorite composer. I played classical violin until I became around 13, by then I realized that for me something was missing. Improvisation! Due to the academic teaching of classical music improvisation vanished, at least during the last, say, 50 years.


I started to experiment with several other musical genres and to listen to all kinds of music. One of my big favorites was, and still is, Jethro Tull. I wanted to play on my violin what Ian Anderson played on his flute. This band was one of the biggest inspirations for me.
In 1998 I went to New York to study improvisation, and ended up in the jazz-department. I admired the American avant-garde composer John Zorn, who was one of the founders of Painkiller, a band who played a mix of avant-garde jazz and grind core. Since those days I am trying to find unconventional ways of using conventional instruments. Maybe ten years ago I started with my Shamanviolin project. I play the melodies of the authentic shaman songs from Siberia on my violin, and play the rhythm of the shaman drums by stamping my feet with ankle bells. Herein lies the beauty of the arctic music; you usually play it when you are alone, and have total freedom of expression. Nowadays there are far too few people who do solo performances.


Q: If you feel that way, why did you join Korpiklaani?


A: Well, Jonne asked me. ( Laughs) No, of course that’s not all. My arctic realm has a strong link to Jonne’s living in Lapland, tending reindeer, and his shaman background. Sometimes things come together so nicely. Some time ago I heard that Korpiklaani was looking for a violin player, and I gave that a thought. But at that time I was occupied with other projects, among them a theatre play about the indigenous Khanty people from Siberia. So it was no option. Now, that project has ended, and I was doing only compositional work. I missed the actual playing and therefore I accepted when I was asked. With Korpiklaani I’ll get the opportunity to play a lot, and face new challenges. Maybe we can join our creativity and do some interesting things together, like joiking together with Jonne. But at first I have to learn the Korpiklaani history. This band feels good to me, they know what they are doing. Besides all this, I like their humor, their joy, the combination of metal and folk elements, and the wild things they do on stage.


Q: You’ve said you like their sense of humor, is humor important to you?


A: Humor is very important to me. Finnish people are said to be so melancholic, but that is not as bad as others think it is; we don’t take that all so serious ourselves. Our melancholy is often mixed with humor. I think that our link to nature causes this melancholy; because we have lived so closely to nature we sense the madness of the modern world more deeply. We have to balance between a holistic (natural) life, and the madness of modern society.


I grew up near Helsinki. But every summer our family spent 3 months on a small wooden sailboat. Often we did not see a living soul for weeks. We lived a fully nomadic life during these months, and that was absolutely great. My parents taught me the respect for nature and how to live in the nature without leaving a trace. It’s quite the opposite from the way most people live. Even in Finland we have lost most of the forests in natural state.


Q: You are a shaman. What does it mean to you?


A: One of the basic principals in shamanism is knowing that everyone is the creator of their own world. Our perception of the world shapes our experiences and eventually creates our life events too. I think that most of the people in the west are living from the feeling of being a victim. A victim for bad health, bad politicians, corporations or whatever. But in reality we should step out of that role and take a full responsibility of our own lives. The more you take responsibility, the freer you become. Our society doesn’t teach people to be themselves anymore and many of us have lost the power to live that way. But it has been so for only about 150 years. It’s not that long compared to the 20 000 years of shamanism.


Q: I’ve heard you get into trance when you are playing the ‘Shamanviolin’, can you tell something about that?


A: Through studying the authentic shaman songs I started to learn the authentic way of performing them as well. It is an active trance, which is purifying and healing, and not just to me, but also to some people in my audience. This active trance feels like some sort of uplifted concentration, and is different from a passive trance that is often reached in meditation through relaxation. In this trance state people find a deeper connection to who they are deep down, and afterwards they feel more appreciative towards who they are themselves.


Link to original interview

Alestorm

If you've ever wondered what a day in the life of a pirate would be like, let Alestorm take you on a pirate metally adventure with sailing tempestuous seas, fighting sea monsters, making traitors walk the plank, and enjoying themselves some meade and wenches. Hailing from Scotland and Ireland, Alestorm's music can be described as power metal meets folk metal, with gruff piratey vocals and violin, accordion, horn, and flute.
The violin parts feature folk melodies, I don't know what national origin the typical Hollywood piratey/seafaring music from the 18th century was from, but it sounds exactly as you would imagine pirate music to sound like. It's played on an acoustic violin by session musicians only, and they do not have a live violinist.

Official Site: alestorm.net/
Facebook: facebook.com/alestormband

Recommended Songs: "Keelhauled," "Back Through Time"

"Keelhauled" :
 

"Back Through Time":
 

Picture from: [1]