I am a huge Star Trek fan, and a huge fan of orchestral strings, so when I watched this video I did not only got tears of musical emotions…but also such a deep profound wish that I could play violin or cello, to be able to record like this! 
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Well wth wouldn’t want to be able to do that? 
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I wish I practiced my violin more often than I do. Funny enough, one of the first things I’m learning to play with my French horn is the DS9 theme 
It’s one of my all-time favorite horn parts!
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Haha, true Fredrik. Nothing beats bowed strings when it comes to emotional expression in music imho.
Matt: How hard is violin to learn, and did you go to a teacher or simply practice by yourself? I am so tempted to get a violin or cello, but I am afraid that it might take too much time to get to good performance capabilities.
Also, curious since you got a French horn, do you have a studio, or basement or something? I mean, what about neighbors!? 
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just buy a violin and learn to play it, you could still make it happen
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I am actually considering it for real now! 
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start practicing with metal music on it… 
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cool I am sure you will be great at it especially if you really like the instrument. have fun learning a new instrument!
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Thanks Carl, I am looking at options right now. I will probably go with an electric violin though (just like she used in the video). Partly because I love electro-acoustic instruments (like the electric guitar), and partly because it is more convenient. I still have neighbors! 
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yes neighbors that’s right… oh cool, sure it will sound amazing being also electric. doesn’t get more trippy than this… huh? if you need a bit of inspiration. At 1:09 wow Mozart playing an amazing composition, didn’t realize Mozart played violin 
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Well, that’s how I feel about these instruments, and it only grows stronger as the fumbling is gradually replaced with expressive lyrical phrases of the sort that pulled me into this in the first place.
It does require a fair bit of obsession and/or discipline to reach the level of getting nice, expressive music out of these instruments, and it’s most likely going to take a few years, but it’s certainly possible, and it’s never too late to start!
Also, it’s not as much a matter of how many hours you practice, as it is about HOW you practice, so unless you’re on a professional soloist level, the recommended 3-5 hours/day might be a bit exaggerated. It’s more important to practice regularly, even if it’s just a 15 minute warmup + “calibration” session some days, and to be focused and listen carefully to what you’re doing, rather than just checking the boxes in the schedule.
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Well, I’ve been playing guitar for 20+ years so it makes violin a bit easier to learn; the strings of violin are the same as the first 4 on guitar but in backward order. The real hard part is learning vibrato—it’s waaaay more difficult on violin.
As for my horn, you play often “muted” (with your fist in the bell) which makes it a bit quiter but not much. But hey the neighbors are loud an annoying themselves so, tit for tat 
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My father plays the violin so I grew up listening to it all the time. Around fifteen years of old I did learn some but now I lost it all. I do own one so I’m always thinking that I will try to pick it up. Unfortunately there’s a broken part on it so I have to turn it in for repair first.
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Hey Mike, I think you’ll love this. Violin + metal = Unlucky Morpheus. They’re a Japanese metal band with a virtuoso violin player, Jill. Their latest has her doing some amazing guitar pieces on violin.
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Matt: I love blending of genres like this.
I had a chat with David yesterday btw, and I want to make it clear that my “holy grail” mission is not to get a classical/traditional sound. My holy grail is simply to find the ultimate form of musical expressiveness as a composer.
If I could play equally expressive on a synth or guitar, I would simply do that. But somehow it seems that even after 100s of years of progress, mankind have still not found a better (more versatile) form of expressive range than bowed strings.
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Oh, I totally understand. I have been playing guitar for over 20 years, of course, but I’ve never owned an acoustic guitar actually. Not because I dislike acoustic, but electric guitars are far more expressive, because you can perform many more techniques like artificial harmonics, tremolo dives, all the different pedal effects, of course the overdrive/distortion sound. I think one can play an instrument any way–it doesn’t have to be only the traditional way. Any way you can be creative to make a sound is the point of expression, I think; horn rips, bowed cymbals, etc.
I think Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine is one of the most expressive guitarists ever, because of his completely unorthodox and non-traditional playing, using all sorts of weird effects and “things” like pencil erasers, tapping the cable jack on the guitar’s pickups…he creates all kinds of unique sounds. So , I think expression is a very personal thing. My favorite style of metal is Neo-classical, because I personally like the types of harmonic movement and melodic sequences and the virtuosic nature of the playing to satisfy my expressive impulses, the same why I love orchestral music.
In the end though, I’d have to agree that, even after 500 years, the classic bowed instruments are still some of the most expressive 
One of the reasons I love those great great cantabile sections in Jon Williams music, a staple of the classic Hollywood Golden Age soundtracks and why my own orchestral style sounds a lot like that era.
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Well for me I am mainly looking for expressiveness in the “curves” between the notes, as well as vibrato. Guitar can not glide, because of frets. Winds can not glide, other than trombones. Bowed instruments are imho amazing for controlling both attack dynamics AND sustain dynamics over time. You simply get so much more expression from using a bow. Direction, placement, pressure etc.
Of course all instruments can be super expressive if you play them well. But those aspects I mentioned are what sets bowed instruments apart from plucked, strummed, struck (piano as well) etc.
Again, if for example the ROLI seaboard would let me perform with equal expression as bowed strings…I may simply choose that. The main advantage is of course that the learning curve would be very tiny in comparison since I already have experience on keyboard.
PS. So what I am after is ultimate expression and emotional control for every single note and transition.
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Hmm… Well, you CAN glide on guitar, if you use a finger slide or the tremolo bar 
Plus you can use a volume pedal or roll the volume knob. I think where the bow has the biggest advantages is complete dynamic control and sustain.
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For the record I love electric guitars, and metal music. And yes, it can be expressive, but dynamic it is not!
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I disagree, only slightly, I think that it’s the human voice that when sung properly can have the most tearjerking effect on all of us. Our bodies can actually resonate with the sound of the singer which unconsciously affects us directly, when a baby cries we feel that connection in our “souls” for lack of a better term. More importantly, listen to what Howard Sahore was trying to accomplish here with simple a single young male singing the lead. Very powerful and gets me every time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_lfcXKov2o it should start right here, simple, powerful, and…hhhhffmmm…I need a kleenex. Awesome. And don’t forget the choir behind him. Just write for the scene, I’ve I’d ever written something like this I would listen to on ridiculously load speakers and die a happy man,
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