Eruption - Van Halen - Violin Cover By Nina D

My journey to learn Eruption began a few years ago, when I only had access to a 5-string fretless violin. I learned a small bit of it, and quickly realized that I would need to compromise the octave range, and the finger tapping in order to perform it. There are a few covers out there of violinists doing just that, and they are very impressive.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I did not want to do that. I wanted to sound like Eddie. Thus began my journey with the 7-string fretted violin. Pretty much the entire reason for having this instrument custom-made (thanks Wood Violins crew!) was to see if I could play Eruption. At the time of purchase, I wasn’t even sure if it would be physically possible to do the finger tapping, even with the new instrument.

Upon its arrival, my first task was to learn how to play the darn thing- it’s like a completely different instrument, the neck is huge, I am tiny, and the low strings are super thick. (I also had to buy a special bow to properly play it). If your bow arm falters by a millimeter, you will hit the surrounding strings. Once I had this part somewhat down, I knew I had to dive into the hardest part right away- to answer the question, “but will it tap?” I began with transcribing this beast of a solo into notation. If you play guitar, and you want to learn how to play pretty much anything, you can go to YouTube and find slow note for note tutorials on EXACTLY how to do so. This doesn’t exist for trying to translate guitar things to a violin. You’re on your own.

I tried it out with my normal rig. Pretty much dead sound. Nothing happening but noise. I had a few ideas for specialty pedals. Since you can’t really go to the store and try pedals any more, I bought one, it didn’t work, shipped it back, bought a different one, didn’t work, shipped it back, etc. ad nauseam. Months went by. It seemed for every step forward I took in achieving this technique, I took two steps back with new problems. For months, my poor family listened to what sounded like a train wreck falling on top of a car wreck falling off the Empire State Building. Brody even said to me, “it ain’t gonna happen.” So I locked myself away until it did. Sometimes during this process, it really felt like me against the world. It was that bad for that long.

I struggled and fought the limitations of the instrument. I had some really hard practice days, but the best motivation for me is “it can’t be done.” It took a combination of newly learned left and right hand technique, played precisely, practiced slowly for clarity, FOREVER to even make the right sound. The spaces that you need to hit, quickly, on a fretted violin are much smaller than that of a guitar. I tweaked the effect chain and technique right up until the 11th hour on the very final day of doing this. One day near the end of it, I was practicing in the studio and Brody was taking a shower. When he got out, he said to me he thought I was playing the recording of Van Halen. That was my breakthrough day. I knew I was close.

I haven’t worked this hard since my masters recital on classical violin. I’ve ripped up my fingers to shreds, they bled, they blistered.

Eddie Van Halen was in a class all of his own. His sound, technique, rhythm, and musicality changed the game for all guitarists (and this electric violinist) that followed. I am a far better performer, a far better violinist, with a much larger range of abilities, thanks to the months (or years) I put into dissecting his style and taking the time to do this on a violin as close to how he did it (so effortlessly) on a guitar as possible. Thank you, EVH, for making so many of us better musicians. ❤️🤍🖤

Some thanks to my amazing team:

Audio Mixing/programming, Drone footage and video editing, Fog jets and laser programming: Brody Dolyniuk
Filming: Patrick Rivera Photography
Lighting: Robert Brassard
Custom Made Eddie Van Halen Outfit: 3x Emmy-nominated costume designer Diana Eden
Hair and Makeup: the MOBB Group
Graphics/Animation: Derryl Rice

*Special thanks to the entire Smith Center crew for allowing me to film this video at Reynolds Hall, the classiest venue in Las Vegas.

*During my process of learning to tap, I searched, but only came across one other single violinist, in which I saw a clip of him doing a tapping segment during a solo on a Mark Wood Viper page- and I have to recognize him for that, because it was not an easy technique to figure out. He plays metal violin, check out his page called Bowbreakerz.

*Thanks to John Wedemeyer for knowing the ins and outs of every single piece of analog gear in existence.

*Thank you to my entire family (including those who visited from out of town during this process) for listening to this 9 million times.

*Thanks to my husband Brody for not giving up on ME, even when he gave up on the idea of tapping on the violin- and continuing to help me see this project through to the end, with all the audio and visuals.