IntermediateViolinJazzRockCountryFolk

Discovering Rock Violin

Name: Discovering Rock Violin
Brand: MusicGurus
Author: Chris Haigh

Chris Haigh

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Modules234

Replay songs121

InstrumentViolin

LanguageEnglish

Contents (234 modules, 121 replay)

- 01. Introduction
- 02. Different Styles
- 03. Rock Violin Techniques
- 04. Using the Recordings
- 05. Listen and Learn
- 06. Air Violin
- 01. 1: The Bare Bones
- 02. The Chord Sequence
- 03. Double-Stopped Harmonies
- 04. Nobody Came
- 05. The Violin as a One Man Orchestra Player
- 06. Player Spotlight - Bobby Valentino
- 07. Nobody Came Version 2
- 08. My Day In Court
- 09. Robots
- 10. Brassed Off
- 01. 2: A Tonic For The Troops
- 02. The Flattened 7th
- 03. The Flattened 3rd
- 04. Minor Pentatonic Scale
- 05. Player Spotlight - Don ‘Sugar Cane’ Harris
- 06. Player Spotlight - Nigel Kennedy
- 07. Minor Pentatonic Scale
- 08. Funkatonic
- 01. 3: The Blues
- 02. The Blues Scale
- 03. Player Spotlight - Papa John Creach
- 04. Bluesbreaker
- 05. The Major Blues Scale
- 06. The 12-Bar Blues
- 07. Player Spotlight - Nick Pickett
- 08. The Minor Blues Sequence
- 09. Big Blues
- 01. 4: Chords, Melody and Modes
- 02. Diatonic Chords
- 03. Dire Tonic
- 04. Unexpected Chords
- 05. Modes
- 06. The Mixolydian in Action
- 07. Mahatma Wonder
- 08. Exponents of Eastern Mysticism
- 01. 5: Soloing
- 02. Artificial Feedback
- 03. Vibrato
- 04. Working with a Singer
- 05. Working with Another Soloist
- 06. Cosmic Conversation
- 07. Phrasing
- 01. 6: Progressive Rock
- 02. Player Spotlight - Eddie Jobson
- 03. Antonio
- 04. Complex Time Signatures
- 05. Five Four (solo)
- 06. Five Four (head)
- 07. Seven Eight
- 08. The Canterbury Scene
- 09. Beyond Canterbury
- 10. Player Spotlight - Graham Smith
- 11. Prog-Rock Outside the UK
- 12. Revelations Fifteen
- 01. 7: Folk Rock
- 02. American Folk Rock
- 03. Electric Folk
- 04. Folk Forms and Rhythms
- 05. Tenpenny Bit
- 06. Cooley’s Reel
- 07. Tenpenny Bit (version II)
- 08. Other English Electric Folk Bands
- 09. Irish Folk Rock
- 10. Folk Ornamentation (fingered)
- 11. Folk Ornamentation (bowed)
- 12. Wickham Wanderers
- 13. Scottish Folk Rock
- 01. 8: Country Rock
- 02. A Brief History of Country Music
- 03. The Shuffle
- 04. The Fiddle in Country Rock
- 05. The 8th of January
- 06. Double Stops
- 07. Cajun
- 08. Contemporary Country
- 09. Player Spotlight - Charlie Daniels
- 10. Zydecommotion
- 01. 9: Jazz Rock
- 02. Modal Jazz
- 03. Swing
- 04. Jazz Fusion
- 05. Following the Chords in Jazz
- 06. Player Spotlight - Jean-luc Ponty
- 07. Player Spotlight - Didier Lockwood
- 08. Other Jazz-Rock Violinists
- 09. Ionosphere
- 01. 10: Heavy Rock and Metal
- 02. Violin Metal in Scandinavia
- 03. Odin’s Beard
- 04. Violin Metal in the US
- 05. Violin Metal in the Rest of Europe
- 06. Player Spotlight - Mark Wood
- 07. Lead Balloon
- 01. 11: Other Styles, Effects, Amplification and Top 20 Solos
- 02. The Violin in Pop Music
- 03. Punk Violin
- 04. Contemporary Pop
- 05. Experimental/Art Rock
- 06. Amplifying the Violin
- 07. Electric Violin
- 08. Effects
- 09. Top 20 Best Rock Violin Solos of all Time, Ever!
- 01. Postscript
- 02. Discography
- 03. Bibliography
- 04. Audio Track Listing
- 05. MP3 Track Listing
- 01. Nobody Came
- 02. Nobody Came (Version 2)
- 03. My Day in Court
- 04. Robots
- 05. Brassed Off
- 06. Funkatonic
- 07. Bluesbreaker
- 08. Big Blues
- 09. Dire Tonic
- 10. Mahatma Wonder
- 11. Cosmic Conversation
- 12. Antonio
- 13. Five Four - demo backing track
- 14. Five Four - solo
- 15. Seven Eight - demo backing track
- 16. Revelations Fifteen
- 17. Ten Penny
- 18. Cooleys Reel - demo backing track
- 19. Tenpenny Bit (version II)
- 20. Wickham Wanderers
- 21. The 8th of January
- 22. Zydecommotion
- 23. Ionosphere
- 24. Odin's Beard
- 25. Lead Balloon
- 01. Fig 1.1 Chords I, IV and V
- 02. Fig 1.2 Chords I, IV and V - root notes
- 03. Fig 1.3
- 04. Fig 1.4
- 05. Fig 1.4a
- 06. Fig 1.4b
- 07. Fig 1.4c
- 08. Fig 1.5
- 09. Fig 1.6
- 10. Fig 1.11 Chords I, IV and V - different options
- 11. Fig 1.13a Double stop suspension in D
- 12. Fig 1.13b Chord shape for three pairs of notes
- 13. Fig 1.13c Three pairs as broken chords
- 14. Fig 1.13d Three pairs as broken chords, pizz.
- 15. Fig 1.26 Silence
- 16. Fig 2.14 Power chords
- 17. Fig 2.15 7#9 chord
- 18. Fig 2.39 Major pentatonic improvisation
- 19. Fig 2.40 Repeating major pentatonic figure, chords changing
- 20. Fig 2.41 Major pentatonic figure, changing with the chords
- 21. Fig 3.46 12-bar blues in E
- 22. Fig 3.47 E blues - repeated four-bar melody
- 23. Fig 3.48 G major blues
- 24. Fig 3.49 Blues in A minor
- 25. Fig 4.8 Backing-style figures over Dire Tonic
- 26. Fig 4.9 Countermelody against tune of Dire Tonic
- 27. Fig 4.10 Major chord II
- 28. Fig 4.11 Melody over major chord II
- 29. Fig 4.12 Blues scale over major chord II
- 30. Fig 4.13 Major blues scale over major chord II
- 31. Fig 4.16 Temporary modulation
- 32. Fig 4.17 Temporary modulation - common note between chords
- 33. Fig 4.18 Temporary modulation - thinking in the new key
- 34. Fig 5.1 Art. Feedback
- 35. Fig 5.2 Timbre
- 36. Fig 5.3 Art. Feedback on blues scale phrase
- 37. Fig 5.4 Art. Feedback as an ending
- 38. Fig 5.5 Refined art. Feedback
- 39. Fig 5.5a Pick slide
- 40. Fig 5.6 Wide-vibrato LH with artificial feedback
- 41. Fig 5.7 Vocal line
- 42. Fig 5.8 Working with a vocalist - improvising in the gaps
- 43. Fig 5.9 Working with a vocalist - playing a fixed line in the gaps
- 44. Fig 5.10 Working with a vocalist - long notes-sparse phrases
- 45. Fig 5.11 Working with a vocalist - harmonising the vocal line
- 46. Fig 5.12 Working with a vocalist - harmonising the vocal line plus fills
- 47. Fig 5.13 Solo - version 1
- 48. Fig 5.14 Solo - version 2 - proper phrase construction
- 49. Fig 5.15 Solo - version 3 - slides, fast runs and art. F/B effect
- 50. Fig 5.16 Solo - version 4 - repeated ideas
- 51. Fig 7.3
- 52. Fig 7.4
- 53. Fig 7.12
- 54. Fig 7.13
- 55. Fig 7.14
- 56. Fig 7.15
- 57. Fig 7.16
- 58. Fig 7.17
- 59. Fig 7.18
- 60. Fig 7.19
- 61. Fig 7.20
- 62. Fig 7.21
- 63. Fig 7.22
- 64. Fig 8.1 Nashville shuffle
- 65. Fig 8.2 Old Joe Clark
- 66. Fig 8.3 Nashville shuffle with emphasis on backbeat
- 67. Fig 8.4 Nashville shuffle with open-string drones
- 68. Fig 8.5 Nashville shuffle with double stops
- 69. Fig 8.6 Nashville shuffle with double stops and slides
- 70. Fig 8.7 Nashville shuffle with double stops and notes a step below
- 71. Fig 8.8 Nashville shuffle with double stops and two, note-below steps per bar
- 72. Fig 8.9 Georgia shuffle
- 73. Fig 8.22 Wide vibrato at phrase end
- 74. Fig 9.1 Swing feel
- 75. Fig 9.2 Rock feel
- 76. Fig 9.2a Latin feel
- 77. Fig 9.7 12-bar blues in G (simple)
- 78. Fig 9.8 Bebop blues
- 79. Fig 9.11 Modal solo, favouring 6ths and 9ths of chord
- 80. Fig 9.12 A minor pentatonic patterns
- 81. Fig 9.13 Playing outside, using whole-tone scales
- 82. Fig 9.14 Repeated, whole-tone phrases transposed up a semitone
- 83. Fig 9.15 Octaves
- 84. Fig 10.1 Heavy rock
- 85. Fig 10.2 Gothic metal
- 86. Fig 10.3 Guitar-style riff
- 87. Fig 10.4 Guitar-style riff (inverted)
- 88. Fig 10.5 Guitar-style riff (3rd position)
- 89. Fig 10.6 Guitar-style (complex)
- 90. Fig 10.7 Guitar-style (grouped 6, 6, 4)
- 91. Fig 10.8 Guitar-style riff (with pedal E)
- 92. Fig 10.10 Guitar-style riff (bluesy)
- 93. Fig 10.11 Guitar-style riff (sextuplets)
- 94. Fig 10.12 Guitar-style riff (wide stretches)
- 95. Fig 10.13 Guitar-style riff (very wide stretches)
- 96. Fig 10.9 Guitar-style riff (variation)

About this songbook

Plug in, turn up, and learn how to make the violin sound at home in a real rock band. Discovering Rock Violin shows you how to go beyond “written string parts” and become the kind of rock fiddler who can build their own lines, lock in with drums and bass, and step forward for fearless leads when the moment arrives.

Chris Haigh starts where working players actually live:

rhythm parts that follow chord sequences (I–IV–V and beyond),
punchy hooks,
double-stopped harmonies,
and practical bowing patterns that create drive instead of classical polish.

From there you’ll dig into the essential rock language - flattened 7ths, power-chord shapes on the violin, minor and major pentatonics, blues scales, and modes (including the Mixolydian sound behind classic British rock solos). You’ll also get style chapters that map the violin’s role across progressive rock, folk rock, country rock, jazz rock, and heavy rock/metal - with clear examples, artist references, and playable studies.

Best of all, this book is built to sound like music. Over 100 recorded demo and backing versions are included so you can hear the target feel, then jump in and experiment with your own variations. Press play and learn, then bring the ideas straight to rehearsal. Start now - and let the fiddle earn its place on the front line.

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Fretboard & keyboard pop-ups

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Also available as a video course · Discovering Rock Violin

Meet the Guru

Chris Haigh

Chris Haigh has been a professional fiddle player for 25 years, with experience covering many different genres. He has played on over 75 albums, working with artists including Alison Moyet, Bob Geldof, All About Eve, Michael Ball, David Soul, Oumou Sangare, The Quireboys, Riverdance, Morcheeba, James Galway and Steps.

He has played swing jazz with The Kimbara Brothers, Diz Disley, Le Jazz, The Hot Club of London, and the Quecumbar Allstars, and leads a 7-piece Soviet swing band, The Kremlinaires.

Chris gives lessons and workshops on jazz violin technique and has taught jazz violin at Middlesex, Brunel and Newcastle universities and Truro College. His writing credits include nine fiddle books, among them The Fiddle Handbook.

He also runs Fiddling Around (fiddlingaround.co.uk), probably the most comprehensive and widely visited source of fiddle information on the web.

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Published with

Schott Music

Founded by Bernhard Schott in Mainz in 1770, Schott Music is one of Europe's oldest and largest music publishers, with a catalogue of more than 30,000 titles. Over its 250-year history Schott has issued first editions of Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, championed 20th-century voices from Hindemith and Schoenberg to Ligeti and Henze, and today publishes sheet music, books and educational materials from offices in Mainz, London, New York, Tokyo and beyond.

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