Stringprovisation: A Fingering Strategy for Jazz Violin Improvisation — Finnish Musicological Society

Claims

1. venuti
   Joe Venuti, who with guitarist Eddie Lang was a leading jazz musician of the 1920s, was a swing violinist whose improvisations were relatively diatonic; he told Matt Glaser that when improvising he used his first finger like a capo and played across the strings within an octave framework, a rule Glaser dubbed 'Venuti's Constant'.

   "It is a very good rule for improvising on the violin, and I guess we can call it “Venuti’s Constant”; stay in position whenever possible, and play across the strings."

   Locator: page: 98–99 · Quote language: en
2. violin-marginal-in-jazz
   The violin was part of African American music before jazz, a significant early blues instrument and part of early jazz instrumentation, yet it became marginal in jazz by the 1940s; Poutiainen attributes this to the lack of a percussive attack, difficulties of amplification, and the technical demands that modern jazz improvisation placed on violinists.

   "It seems likely that the position has origin in the many challenges that the modern jazz expression presented to violinists."

   Locator: page: 1–4 · Quote language: en