I hate to admit this but I have always found bouncy upbeat tunes featuring violins a bit twee. Perhaps it was the Switched On Classics of my youth. Perhaps I was attacked by a pack of poorly played violins as a child. Who knows?
I can’t be certain what caused this aversion but I do know who has managed to get right around it, get me listening to music I once spurned, and all the more remarkably, loving it. Her name, my fellow pop culture addicts, is Lindsey Stirling (yes I know the headline gave it away) and she is absolutely amazing.
There is nothing even remotely twee about this talented woman. She is funky, exuberant and plays the most uplifting, bouncy tunes I have ever heard anyone play and yes, they all involve spirited playing of her violin.
It appears she had always been a fairly go get ’em kind of person . At the tender age of six, she begged her family for violin lessons, took the instrument like a prodigy and after joining a rock band at 16, ended up on America’s Got Talent in 2010. That’s a considerable amount of drive, determination, and as the music bears out, talent. (You can read her full bio here.)
Clearly she wanted to be noticed, and thankfully, she is worth noticing. Her sound is entirely original, mostly upbeat electronica-influenced tunes – it was not for nothing that she was tagged as the “Hip Hop Violinist” on America’s Got Talent which completely makes sense since she is classical and street all at once – although she has released some achingly beautiful tunes, and her clips are endlessly inventive such as the one for “Shadows” below (which a friend showed me a scant two days ago):
She is definitely a one-of-a-kind artist and I love the fact that her creed is to always be who you are. In a world screaming out for everyone to merge into one bland blob of conformity, this fun-loving, extrovert with a gift for drawing melodies from god off her violin refuses to be anyone but herself. It’s no doubt this ethos that underpins the utter gorgeous originality of her music.
Go on listen to it all. If it can persuade a guy like me to overcome my violin-phobia, then it’s likely you will be as enthralled by her as I am.
I dare you not to dance.