CONNECTING THE DOTS

WEST ASIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

While ancient instrument-makers from Bamako to Beijing toyed with strings, bows, and wooden frames, the instrument we know as violin may owe its most debt to the Byzantine lira and the Islamic rabab. By Medieval times lutes were popular throughout Europe and by the 1500's instrument-makers took inspiration from the “fiddles” played by strolling Minnesingers and developed the violin.

The violin arrived just in time to meet the Renaissance, and composers took full advantage of its melodic and dynamic potential. Soon there was no such thing as orchestra without violins, and their gliding, glistening sound forms the basis for much of Western classical music. But the violin wasn't content dominating the high-falutin' orchestra halls of Vienna.

Musicians from many parts of the world traveled to Europe and brought Western orchestral instruments back to Europe and brought Western orchestral instruments back home, weaving them into local compositions. The violin became a staple in the Islamic world, fitting well with the sliding quarter-tones found in Arabic music. The portable instrument made the voyage to the Americas, where musicians made it a staple of their folk styles, notably in Mexico where a mariachi band just wouldn't be the same without a bevy of violins, and in Appalachia where the violin, inspired by its Irish folk-playing forefathers, returned to its down-home, fiddlin' roots.

LEARN ABOUT VIOLINS EVERYWHERE!: INTERACTIVE LESSONS FOR KIDS