Category Archives: Uncategorized


New ‘Winter’ Works

December 06 2022 No comment

:::EP & Single::: Ominosities & Strange Hour Following the Everything & Inbetween album in the spring, summer & autumn flashed by, and now it’s winter once more. Quite unexpectedly, inspiration to write new music came unannounced, as it does, in late October; and a set of solo Piano works were quickly recorded and released as […]

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Inside Leo Fender’s Electric Violin

December 06 2022 No comment

First up, Leo Fender’s Electric Violin is hollow. It is a misconception that it is or ever was solid-bodied. Maybe an early prototype may yet emerge from a dusty cupboard or secret stash to prove different, but certainly when Leo Fender presented his first production prototype to the world in 1957, it was and still […]

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Album Release: Everything & Inbetween

February 21 2022 No comment

After much deliberation and faltering, I am releasing “Everything & Inbetween”, a most personal collection of songs and instrumentals. Everything & Inbetween by Benedict Heaney This new work draws on the pure instrumental ambiences & atmospheres found on my EP & Dark Descended album and incorporates more of the song elements found in my Retrospective […]

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Exploring Electric Violinists

May 11 2021 No comment

revoking earlier editions of Digital Violin publications as now being out of date… Announcing the Book of Electric Violin. by Benedict Heaney The first thing right and proper to do is to get the thoughts and opinions of those people who identify themselves most directly with Electric Violin – the players and the makers of […]

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Benioff’s Musical Instruments

April 16 2020 No comment

Seismologist invents electrical violins. Two violins which reproduce the music by electrical means have been invented by Professor Hugo Benioff, associate professor of seismology at the California Institute of Technology. Instead of wood resonance chambers, a small crystal container is inserted beneath the strings. Vibrations caused by the bow make the crystal generate an electric […]

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The Music Health Service

January 09 2019 No comment

“live music” Ben Heaney, 2019 Thinking out loud, throwing it out there… The following was offered at the “Coping with the Ageing Population” meeting, conducted a few weeks ago at the House of Lords examining the full value of music to UK society (http://musicinsociety.uk/) A Music Health Service funded in a different way e.g. take […]

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Another Fender First, but came just about Last!

April 06 2018 No comment Leo Fender’s first production model Electric Violin clearly never caught on. This particular “Fender First“ vanished with little trace in 1958 Original Fender Sales Catalogue 1958-1959 (pg.12), shows the production model with "ebony" fingerboard Bob Wills didn’t take to it, nor did just about any of the other violinists said to have tried it at [...] Continue Reading

When You First Begin To Play…

April 23 2017 No comment

In the 1970s the new breed of violin as a fully electrified instrument was really beginning to spread but there was nothing like any good advice to be found for those interested. Some of the few violinists who were turning to an electric violin at this time even thought they were the first to do so, […]

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Electric Violin Shop

April 13 2016 No comment The interest in amplified strings only gets keener… Electric Violin Shop is an independent retailer of amplified stringed instruments. They are clearly at the forefront of an industry described as unique, exciting and growing. The following information is gleaned partly from the shop’s website but also from observation dating back over ten years and direct [...] Continue Reading

Digital Violin & The Tipbook Company

April 12 2016 No comment

Delighted! Continued reference to Digital Violin in the Tipbook Company’s Complete Guide Violin and Viola edition and “eTipbook Violin”  by Hugo Pinksterboer .    Neat, compact and to the point work. ‘Violin & Viola’ is part of “a series of accessible, handy books, eTipbooks, and apps about music and musical instruments, written in cooperation with numerous musicians and other experts” […]

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