Hello! I play the electric violin. It's like a violin but electronic.
Is it like a regular violin with pickups added?
Yes, it has built-in pickups.
Oh, like a solid body electric guitar. Do you play jazz?
Yes. I like Stuff Smith.
I never heard of Stuff Smith. What kind of stuff did he do? I'm guessing that's a man.
Yes, he is a jazz violinist that likes Louis Armstrong.
Is he a contemporary of Armstrong, or is a current artist?
artist Stuff Smith is generally credited as being one of the first performers to adapt pickups and amplifiers to violins. The Electro Stringed Instrument Corporation, National String Instrument Corporation and Vega Company sold electric violins in the 1930s and 1940s; Fender produced a very small number of electric violins in 1958 (first production model pictured at the head of this page), and resissued it again in 1969 until 1975.
Barcus Berry have been producing electric violins since the mid-1960s and in the early 1970s Max Mathews began developing an electric violin which
the refinish on the front of the bass, made the pickguard and did a lot of the other little stuff myself, but I had John Carruthers (Venice, CA) do the stuff that really mattered, like route the body for the two extra pickups, cause you only get one chance to do that, and it has to be perfect. He's the man, totally. He also did a really versatile wiring thing for me and one of the most amazing fret jobs I've ever seen."
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