O.K. Maybe he can kick butt on guitar and keyboards. And maybe he can hold his own on bass and get by on drums. But, from everything he's ever recorded, it's clear that if Prince ever picked up the violin, he'd be no Paganini, no Heifetz, no Stern, no Perlman.

So, as far as I'm concerned, Prince ain't shit!

...the 'prince: music & more' forum has now completed its broadcast day and is ending its programming. we hope you have a pleasant evening, and a wonderful tomorrow. thank you for tuning in.

(cue up "all my dreams")

sign off

Violin/Viola/Cello/Bass are very different from Guitar. The skills don't transfer well at all.

I know because I am/was a decent violinist, but I can't play a damn thing on guitar.

Wondering if the title of this thread wasn't inspired by my thread "I Had A Dream About Prince Last Night" where in the dream Prince was playing the violin

tackam said:

I would have to disagree with you on this one, being an accomplished violinist myself.

Although I never formally took the time to try and play the guitar, many of my peers have, and I have picked up their guitars from time to time. Within a few minutes I had a reasonable understanding of the... I don't know what you would call it... chord structure of the guitar.. I don't know. Suffice to say, I was able to play some simple chords and play some simple tunes within a matter of 15 minutes. This sure as hell doesn't make me a master of guitar, but it did show me how the two instruments transfer. In addition to this, many of my peers became quite adept at guitar playing within a year. The mandolin, is similar to a guitar in the sense that it has frets, and is plucked, but has the string structure of a violin. The bass is also similar to the violin, except the string structure is aranged as CGDA instead of GDAE. Prince is clearly capable with the bass, and his general knowledge of string instruments, I'm sure, would mean that Prince could learn the violin reasonably quickly and well, if he was so inspired. I don't think he will though, because... well, that would just be too weird. I think perhaps, his only disadvantage would be in the fact that he would be playing on a small fingerboard with no frets, making it a lot harder for him to know where to put his fingers. I know he's played fretless bass before, but the larger finger board makes this easier to do. I don't know if he's ever put a bow to an upright bass, but if he has, that would help him with his bow technique

I seem to recall a post mentioning a boot or a time when Prince did play the violin and some people witnessed this??

savoirfaire said:

Eh. . .I think the musical training transfers, but I have a hard time seeing how the technical skills transfer.

But I'm sure you're a better violinist than I am, so maybe that's the difference.

Prince can't play the voilin...???

Thanx, now U've ruined all my dreams of him being the perfet musician!!!

HerRoyalBadness said:

.. ..

You know what else he sucks at: the Triangle.

minneapolisgenius said:

The triangle is a tricky instrument to play.

minneapolisgenius said:

The Triangle is NOT an instrument!
It's a piece of metal fomred as a triangle.

prince "plays" the violin and saxophone in the facedown video.

glazegirl said:

I didn't know there was a video for Face Down!

Cloudbuster said:

--
oh yeah!
it's pretty corny, but prince makes some great faces in it! i have no idea where you could access the video.

glazegirl said:

never seen it.. never heard about it..

Sandra said:

Yeah, it looks really low-budget.

Sandra said:

Me neither


Hate that song, doesn't say me a thing

minneapolisgenius said:

Like most of his videos.

Cloudbuster said:

Yeah, but then worse.