YouTube sensation Lindsey Stirling is perhaps the only violin artist to combine the classic violin with the modern dubstep style. Her love of music began at the age of five when she finally convinced her mom to let her take bi-weekly violin lessons. Other than the violin, Stirling fell in love with dance, but could not afford dance lessons so she did what any tech savvy girl would do and learned from videos on YouTube. She taught herself a variety of moves and techniques, including how to moonwalk.
In high school she began experimenting with some basic video editing software. Over four years she and her friends made videos to everything from “Skater Boii” to Shakira’s “Wherever, Whenever.” She joined her first band at sixteen, called Melvin Stomp, continuing to make music videos to their original works. As if music videos were not enough, in her senior year of high school, Stirling convinced her friends to make a full-length film about three girls with super powers. It was her first and last attempt at doing special effects on her own.
In 2007, Stirling decided she wanted to be a guest on “Ellen.” To get the producers’ attention, she wrote violin covers of popular songs and incorporated dance to make her first YouTube video. It did not take long for the video to go viral and soon Stirling had thousands of fans from all around the world.
Her YouTube channel, lindseystomp, has 35 videos, which include original works and covers of various video games, movies and other artists. At over thirty-one million views, “Crystallize” is her most popular original piece as well as her first attempt at mixing classical violin with the dubstep style. The overwhelming positive response from her fans has allowed Stirling to explore the genre and eventually release an album that contains more of the classical violin mixed with dubstep. While on the surface combining classical and dubstep would not seem a successful combination, it is Stirling’s sprite like stage presence that bridges the classical violin sound to the speed and energy of the dubstep style.
Her self-titled album “Lindsey Stirling” contains twelve original pieces, which each have special meaning to the artist. According to Stirling, “‘Spontaneous Me’ is about having the courage to love yourself for who you are,” while “Crystallize” reflects the attitude that our thoughts, beliefs and the environment we surround ourselves with let us access the “power to make a positive change within ourselves and others.” Some of her singles available for purchase range from “The Legend of Zelda” and “Phantom of the Opera” medleys to more recent work such as a “We Found Love” cover, filmed in Kenya. Stirling also collaborates with other YouTube sensations such as Peter Hollens (“Skyrim” and “Game of Thrones” covers) and Megan Nicole (“Starships” cover). The album sells for $11.99 and the singles sell for $1.29 each on iTunes.
Stirling is currently near the end of her US tour and is scheduled to begin a European tour in January 2013.
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