Electric Violin - Tape-bow Violin

Tape-bow Violin

Laurie Anderson's tape-bow violin, an electronic instrument developed in 1977, resembles an electric violin but does not have strings. It produces sound by drawing a bow, strung with a length of recorded magnetic tape rather than hair, across a magnetic tape head mounted on the instrument where the bridge would normally be. This somehow anticipates the later technique of "scratching" in rap and hip-hop music, where a vinyl recording is turned back and forth on a turntable.