Violectra is the name of a range of electric violins, violas and cellos designed, developed and hand made by David Bruce Johnson, a Canadian violin maker settled in Birmingham, England. These instruments are played by

Nigel Kennedy Nigel Kennedy (born 28 December 1956) is an English violinist and viola, violist. His early career was primarily spent performing classical music, and has since expanded into jazz music, jazz, klezmer, and other music genres. Early life and ...

Richard Tognetti Richard Leo Tognetti AO (born 4 August 1965) is a leading Australian musician recognised internationally as a violin soloist, ensemble player, leader, composer and arranger, conductor and artistic director. He is currently artistic direct ...

Stephen Nachmanovitch Stephen Nachmanovitch (born 1950) is an American musician, author, artist, and educator. He performs and teaches internationally as an improvisational violinist, and at the intersections of performing and multimedia arts, philosophy, and ecology. ...

Leila Josefowicz Leila Bronia Josefowicz ( ; born October 20, 1977) is an American-Canadian classical violinist. Biography Josefowicz was born in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. When she was a young child her family moved to Los Angeles, California, where she star ...

and many more professional players worldwide. Previously, Violectra was the trade name of an

electric violin 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 fi ...

produced by Barcus-Berry with the pitch equivalent of an acoustic

tenor violin A tenor violin (or tenor viola) is an instrument with a range between those of the cello and the viola. An earlier development of the evolution of the violin family of instruments, the instrument is not standard in the modern symphony orchestra. ...

, sometimes called

baritone violin A Baritone violin is a member of the violin family and has two specific meanings: * a violin tuned an octave below conventional violin tuning (G2–D3–A3–E4). This is commonly accomplished by stringing a standard violin with heavy gauge stri ...

. It is tuned an octave below normal violin, i.e. between

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

and

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

. It was developed in USA by Barcus-Berry in the early 1960s.

Jean-Luc Ponty Jean-Luc Ponty (born 29 September 1942) is a French jazz and jazz fusion violinist and composer. He is considered a pioneer of jazz-rock, particularly for his use of the electric violin starting in the 1970s. He rose to prominence for his colla ...

Michał Urbaniak Michał Urbaniak (born January 22, 1943) is a Polish jazz musician who plays violin, lyricon, and saxophone. His music includes elements of folk music, rhythm and blues, hip hop music, hip hop, and symphonic music. History He was born in War ...

and

Elek Bacsik Elek Bacsik (22 May 1926 – 14 February 1993) was a Hungarian-American jazz guitarist and violinist. He was the cousin of guitarist Django Reinhardt. Career Bacsik was born in Budapest, Hungary. He was the son of Árpád Bacsik and Erzséb ...

were among the first jazz violinists to play it. Fiddler

Vassar Clements Vassar Carlton Clements (April 25, 1928 – August 16, 2005) was an American jazz, Swing music, swing, and Bluegrass music, bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borro ...

brought the instrument into the progressive bluegrass scene, and

Urban Blitz Urban Blitz is an English rock musician, best known for his "eerie and atmospheric" (Ira Robbins) electric violin, baritone violectra and lead guitar work with the 1970s London protopunk art rock band Doctors of Madness.Robbins, IraDoctors of ...

into a

rock music Rock is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in the United States as "rock and roll" in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of styles from the mid-1960s, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdo ...

context. The first recording known of with it is by the maker himself John Berry on a 1963 demonstration album. However, in common parlance amongst musicians, a violectra is an electric violin with a C string added so that it can play the full range of the violin or viola.

External links

* http://www.violectra.co.uk Amplified instruments Violins