Playing improv violin in a band

I've played in a variety of groups, orchestra in school, a bluegrass band, Irish jam sessions, an old Western swing ("Take me Back to Tulsa") band, one church orchestra, and several church bands.

No one ever really taught me how to play a violin with a band. Growing up, orchestra always provided full music, but playing in a band, with guitars and nothing but chord charts and by ear is something I've had to figure out on my own.

Preparation

The church bands I've been in effectively act like cover bands, playing a lot of music from popular artists and groups. These days it's Phil Wickham, Bethel, Elevation, and Hillsong. Right now we have a few powerhouse singers, which puts selections from CeCe Winans on table, and not sure if it's because I play fiddle, but we've also played some curveballs like "Ain't No Grave" by Cageless Birds & Molly Skaggs.

Popular song versions are often not played in the same key that we do them, which really throws off my ear and take on the song.

I don't write down any music for myself, but I put a lot of focus on scales and arpeggios in the keys I'm going to be playing. I practice the whole range on my instrument, regardless of if the full scale fits in my instrument range. If I only practice in ranges of complete scales, I miss out on ear training outside of that range, and also some possible harmonies. A fifth on a violin is the same finger location on the next higher or lower string, so the biggest thing I take into account is knowing the appropriate position for thirds.

Basics to not get kicked off stage

The first thing I start with when given a new song, is "What key is it in?" There's a lot of common chord transitions to expect given the key the song is in.

The absolute base of what I play is just playing the chord roots. On chord charts, if I see an G major, then I play a G. It changed to a D major, so then I play a D. Super simple. I didn't play much but chord roots for a long time while getting used to playing in a band. You have to follow along with the phrasing of the music and any rhythms, but it keeps you on stage and with the band.

Originally it was very overwhelming since I was used to having every note I needed to play written on a page for me. The number one thing for me is not being stressed out and having a good time, and when I'm learning new music those chord roots operate like a home base to keep me on track from going too wild and distracting other band members.

Basics of When to Play

I decide when I play usually along verse/chorus/bridge boundaries. Unless the singers need support in the initial opening verse or chorus, I'll typically wait to play until the second. The singers I play with are great and it gives them time to shine. If I ever get confused about what's going on, or things seem off, I find it usually ok to trail off whatever I'm playing and look for an opening to get back in.

When building familiarity with a song, I'll typically stick to the root of the chords while learning the timing of the chord changes. I'll also adjust my monitor mix depending on which of my teammates drives the movement of those changes. Singers often use a bit of leeway on lyrics and there's some band dynamics of who is driving the chord movement, and how they handle situations where timings get stretched.

Setup

For sound, I used to use a bridge pickup or get put on a compression mic, as vocal mics pick up a lot extra noise that you don't want. The pickups I've used had a little metal folded element that fit into the bridge, but they always had a nasal sound to me like a bridge mute, so now I play an electric violin (a 5-string YEV).

Guitarists I play with have full sets of pedals they use to control their sound and input. The only thing I use is a single pedal, simply to be able to turn myself off. This helps avoid the embarrassing audio jump scare click of plugging my instrument in when the preacher is praying if I'm not turned off at the soundboard.

I've played both with on stage "monitors" blasting the band back at me, and with in-ear monitors. While wearing "in-ears" is weird at first, overall it probably has helped. Unlike a stage monitor, I can control what I hear. Most of what I have in my mix is the metronome click, whichever guitarist is carrying the chords and a bit of keyboard. Our drummer does a great job expressing direction in the song and when to build, so I have him and a few other folks lower to make sure I get queued to play appropriately.

Other things to play

Playing chord roots is ok, but not very interesting.

The number one important thing I've found is following with the phrasing and the overall direction of the song. Is it building or breaking down? Where does the musical conversation start and stop?

My grandfather used to call modern church music "7-11" songs due to their repetition. As an optional musician in the band, I treat my job in the band as a way to introduce variation.

"Variation" is a funny word because it means something but it doesn't mean any particular thing. My philosphy is to have build up a bag of tricks that I can use and then distribute them throughout the various songs we play to make each song more unique. This doesn't have to be complicated, as a simple example, if I find myself playing in the midrange in all of them, I look for opportunities to move my main lines in a song an octave up or down.

Inspiration and playing within limits

I listen to a lot of different music and use this to fill my bag of tricks with lots of things I can borrow. My selection is pretty wide, and I borrow inspiration from a lot of different sources. EDM usually is highly structured and helps understand and train me to track longer phrasing and chord change patterns like longer 16 bar phrasing. Lindsey Stirling's style has a lot you can copy (minus the dancing around) as does Jennifer Thomas.

In general, I play a simple style. I'm technically "classically trained" through some mishmash of orchestra violin teachers familiar with the Suzuki method, though my last few years of instruction were all bluegrass and Celtic fiddle.

I fall into the weird no man's land of not being a polished violinist -- I stopped training before college -- but also not being a great fiddle player. I'm more a classically trained mediocre fiddle player. I'm very constrained in the technicality of what I can play, and stay in first or half position on my instrument most of the time.

Like a good cartoonist, I'm trying to do the same thing over and over again without repeating myself. Rehearsal provides the only real time to figure out what works and what doesn't, so I try not to be timid. If I want to try something wild, I'm going to turn myself off with my pedal, try something to see if it fits and then turn myself back on.

Fortunately, the repetitive nature of modern church music gives me plenty of opportunities to try things out in rehearsal. It's better to crash and burn there than when playing in front of an actual audience. When I find a good line to play, I mentally file it away and try to find something else that can also work.

Violin or Viola, why not both?

The instrument I play is a 5-stringed YEV from Yamaha, which is effectively a violin/viola combination. I briefly played viola many years ago, and this instrument gives me an extra lower fifth that helps fill a music gap between the singers and the bass, especially in songs in C, D and F.

A viola covers more of what and how I play, I very infrequently stray up above the A string. I hang myself out to dry quite easily and when I've done things in the higher ranges, my wife's impression of it in the audience has not been positive.

Filling gaps

Different songs have different "feels." The best way I can describe it, is that it pops into my mind to use terms like "open" or "heavy" or "light" to express to myself how I should play. On an "open" song, I'll use open strings and broad legato sounds with more rolls and double stops. For a "light" song, I'll minimize ornamentation that I use, feather in notes, and use more swells and heavy vibrato in my best Hans Zimmer impression.

Leading into phrases

The breaks between song phrases provide some openings to add some flavor. If there's a chord change, just a note or two, or a small run up into that root note ties the phrases together. Movement doesn't have to be an extravagant orchestral glissando, even something as simple as a note or two can have a lot of impact.

It's easy to overdo and it can be easy to go long on timing, but a single note from the previous chord which leads up a step into the following chord adds a lot with little effort.

Ramps and movement

Once familiar with the chord changes of a song, I don't stick only to the roots. I look for ramps and builds that I can do based on a scale which runs through successive chords. Being able to do this means that I have not know the third and fifths in chords. Chord charts sometimes have ramps or hints at ramps explicitly written into them using notation like G/D, "G major over D" where D is the lowest note.

In bridge 2 of "King of my Heart" there's successive chords of D, E, F#m, E, D, and E, which makes an excellent ramp over the entire bridge! That ramp would be D, E, F#, G#, A, B. There's also descending ramps, like in "All Hail King Jesus", there's E/G#, B, and then C#m. I can play this as a descending G#, F# and then E.

Interleaved movement

Sometimes movement can happen in a direction, but literally taking multiple steps forward and then one step backward. In "King of Kings" verses, there's this chord pattern: D/F#, G, A, D, D/F#. This can be played as two interleaved descending ramps, F#, G, E, F#, D.

For verse three, the chords change a bit to Bm, G, A, D. In this I might play F#, G, E with movement through F# and then E to get to that lower D.

Double stops

Double stops (playing two notes at once) provide a way to help build a song even more, or also add my own harmony in a breakdown where it's only me and a singer.

Ornamentation

I use a lot of Irish/Scottish/bluegrass "ornamentation." While I almost always stay away from slides, there are a lot of things I find useful to add some flavor, especially to long held notes.

Five notes rolls:

Flicks:

Drones:

Vibrato and Feathers

Just because I'm playing a single note doesn't mean that note cannot be the best one I've ever played. I wasn't joking about doing my best Hans Zimmer impression, feathering the start and end of a note and adding dynamics to a note can really help it sing. This works even independently of vibrato, which can actively detract from the musical tone that I'm trying to produce.

Vibrato helps produce some variation on a note, I sometimes incrementally add or remove it, or omit it entirely depending on what the emotion of the song requires at that time.

Melody

I don't play a lot of melody. If I do, I try to follow along the start, and then add some harmony to it.

In instrumental sections I throw in some melody, or find a bar or two riff that works and then try to do a slight variation on it. Guitarists pull off some great work in these sections too, so if they have something I'll stop playing and just let them have a good time.

Range

The vocal range of the singer and any harmony singers also affects the pitch range I'm going to be using. I sometimes operate like a turning fork for lone singers to anchor off of if other bandmembers aren't playing. This is especially important at song starts where a singer might not have the key in her or his head yet, and even more important if the previous song was in a different key. When there's a lot of vocal harmony, I'll drop out, or dive into a lower range, such as by taking advantage of that lower viola fifth.

The song must go on

As a fiddler or violinist, playing with a band can be intimidating or confusing especially if you're starting out. Hopefuly this demystifies some of how this can work.