TwoSet Violin

TwoSet Violin are an Australian comedy duo consisting of Australian violinists Brett Yang and Eddy Chen. They are best known for their musical comedy on their YouTube channel, which has reached over 2.63 million subscribers and 607 million views as of 9 August 2020.

TwoSet Violin
TwoSet Violin (Brett Yang playing the violin accompanied by Eddy Chen on the piano) performing at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City on 31 October 2018.
Personal information
BornBrett Yang
(1992-03-03) 3 March 1992[1]
Eddy Chen
March 1993 (age 27)[2]
OriginBrisbane, Australia
Occupation
  • Musician
  • YouTuber
Websitewww.twosetviolin.com
YouTube information
Channel
Years active2013–present
Genre
  • Comedy
  • music
Subscribers2.64 million
Total views611.3 million
Catchphrase(s)
  • "Practice"
  • "Ling Ling 40 Hours"
100,000 subscribers 2018
1,000,000 subscribers 2019
Updated 13 August 2020

History

Brett Yang and Eddy Chen first met each other in mathematics tutoring, when Yang was 14 and Chen 13.[3][4] They became acquainted as the youngest members of a youth orchestra and later as students at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.[5] Yang's debut at Queensland Conservatorium was performing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in 2012. He has worked with various other Australian orchestras, including a performance at the 2014 G20 Brisbane summit. Chen was a finalist for the National Young Virtuoso Award in Queensland in 2014 and had played with the Queensland and Melbourne symphonies.[6]

In 2013, they started posting covers of pop music played on the violin on their YouTube channel.[5] In an interview with CutCommon, Yang said they saw violin virtuosos who had millions of views on YouTube playing covers and attempted to do the same to minimal reaction.[6] They then discovered violinist Ray Chen made comedic videos and shifted their content in a similar direction. They focused their videos on their lives in the conservatory culture, as classical musicians and as students, which led to a dramatic increase in viewership.[5][6][7] At the end of 2016, Yang and Chen renounced their places in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Queensland Symphony Orchestra respectively to begin performing live concerts of their own.[8]

In 2018, their YouTube channel received the Silver Play Button, and in 2019, they received the Gold Play Button.[9] Kyle Macdonald of Classic FM listed TwoSet Violin as one of the "10 ways the 2010s changed classical music forever".[10] On January 22, 2020, it was announced that TwoSet Violin would be attending the Menuhin Competition held at Richmond, Virginia as roving reporters.[11][12] However, it was postponed to May 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.[13] On February 8, 2020, TwoSet Violin live streamed their performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto to celebrate achieving 2 million subscribers in which Yang played the solo part and Chen performed an original arrangement of the orchestral component for solo violin.[14]

Tours

TwoSet announced their first live performance Brisbane, Australia on September 8, 2016 via YouTube.[15] The act featured violin performance more in the format of a comedy act than a traditional concert.[5]

With KickStarter as their fundraising method along with street performance in Sydney, they raised enough money to go on a worldwide tour in 2017 to 11 cities in 10 countries,[5][16][17] in Asia and Europe[18] including Taipei, Helsinki, and Frankfurt.[19][20][21] In 2018, they performed in several places in the United States including New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.[22][23][18]

In October 2019, TwoSet announced another world tour where they planned to visit multiple locations in Oceania, Europe, Asia and North America.[24] However, the tour was postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and new dates have not been announced as of August 2020.[25]

Videos, gimmicks and themes

In 2017, TwoSet Violin made a comedic reference to Ling Ling, a fictional violinist who "practices 40 hours a day". In an interview with Yle Uutiset, they described Ling Ling as the final boss of a video game: the Chuck Norris of violinists. Chen said they improvised the character from their comedy sketch video concerning a teenage violin student's tiger mom comparing the student to her friend's child.[26][27] In 2018, they released a series of videos called the Ling Ling Workout. In these challenges, the duo draws a classical piece (or contemporary music) and a handicap such as playing with double speed, scordatura, playing while dancing or hula hooping, with hand positions reversed, or while upside down. Prominent violinists such as Ray Chen, Ziyu He, and Hilary Hahn have also attempted the challenge on their channel.[28][27][29][30][31]

In July 2018, they released a series of videos in which they performed classical music using rubber chickens.[32][33][34] In August 2018, they released a video series called "1% Violin Skills, 99% Editing Skills" in which Yang attempts to play a difficult piece, and Chen asks him to play a chromatic scale. Chen then uses video editing to piece together the notes as originally composed.[35] Other gimmicks include violin charades,[30] playing other instruments,[36] and viola jokes.[37] Another popular video series consists of reviews of film and TV show scenes that feature violin playing, in which Yang and Chen critique egregiously fake performances.[38][39] On April 1, 2019, they claimed they discovered a new Double Violin Concerto by J.S. Bach.[40]

On 14 September 2018, TwoSet Violin uploaded a reaction video to a BBC News story titled "Fastest Violinist in the World", in which they challenged violinist Ben Lee's Guinness World Record claim of playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" for what they perceived to be significant inaccuracy. They satirically timed themselves purposefully playing random fast notes before declaring they had broken the world record.[41] In April 2019, the duo similarly called out Vov Dylan, who was awarded the title of World's Fastest Violinist by the Australian Book Of Records,[42] concluding that Dylan's performance of "Bumblebee" was worse than Lee's.[43]

gollark: What is this "fluent design"?
gollark: <@151391317740486657> https://osmarks.tk/points still works the same, tap achievements to dismiss them.
gollark: I can just use the highly advanced hashing algorithm™ in page.js used for the pretty achievement colors.
gollark: Oh, good idea.
gollark: That would be very easy with the browser console.

References
  1. Channel, The Violin (3 March 2019). "Today is TwoSet Violinist Brett Yang's 27th Birthday! [ON-THIS-DAY]". The World's Leading Classical Music News Source. Est 2009. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0z4GBCQed4
  3. TwoSet Violin. TwoSet Brett & Eddy talk about things they don't usually talk about... Retrieved 21 December 2018 – via YouTube.
  4. TwoSet Violin (23 September 2018). "Australisches Duo TwoSet Violin im Interview". Concerti.de (Interview) (in German). Interviewed by Elisa Reznicek.
  5. Ball, Meghna (13 April 2017). "Brisbane YouTubers Twoset Violin and their global quest to preserve classical music". Australian Broadcasting Company. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  6. Wood, Eleanor (23 November 2016). "TwoSet Violin: The Brisbane music graduates breaking the internet". CutCommon. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  7. Sergi, Justin (12 October 2016). "Twoset Violin Offer A Guide to Understanding Conservatory Friends". WQXR. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  8. https://www.twosetviolin.com/about. Retrieved 9 August 2020. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  9. References announcing their play buttons from YouTube:
  10. "10 ways the 2010s changed classical music forever". Classic FM.
  11. "Menuhin Competition Richmond 2020 Announces Competitors: 44 Violinists Selected from Record- High Applicant Pool; TwoSet Violin, YouTube Superstars and Classical-Music Comedy Duo, Attend Competition as Roving Reporters" (PDF). Richmond Symphony Orchestra (Press release). 22 January 2020. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
  12. Channel, The Violin (22 January 2020). "Candidates Announced for 2020 Menuhin International Violin Competition".
  13. "Menuhin Competition Richmond 2020". Menuhin Competition.
  14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyJ6ZsAuT-M
  15. "Thank You".
  16. "TwoSet Violin are launching a crowdfunded world tour". Classic FM (UK). 25 March 2017. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  17. Rochester, Marc (9 October 2017). "Classical music meets comedy". The Straits Times. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  18. "TwoSet Violin World Tour Los Angeles". Colburn School. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  19. Vanasse, Jacqueline (13 November 2017). "TwoSet Violin – Hilarious with a Cause". Violinist.com. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  20. "TwoSet Violin World Tour". www.musiikkitalo.fi. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  21. "TwoSet Violin World Tour Frankfurt - 14 October 2018". Evensi. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  22. "TwoSet Violin World Tour – Wednesday,October 31 2018, 7 pm". Kaufman Music Center. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  23. TwoSet Violin [@twosetviolin] (26 September 2018). "So San Francisco sold out in one hour..." (Tweet). Retrieved 18 October 2018 – via Twitter.
  24. https://twitter.com/TwoSetViolin/status/1181215897584721922. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  25. https://www.twosetviolin.com/worldtour. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  26. Matilla, Mattias (11 October 2018). "Tämän kaksikon sketsejä on katsottu somessa jo satoja miljoonia kertoja – meemien ja klassisen musiikin yhdistelmä osoittautui hittireseptiksi" [This duo's sketches have been watched hundreds of millions of times in Finland - the combination of memes and classical music turned out to be a hit recipe]. Yle Uutiset (in Finnish). Retrieved 10 November 2018.
  27. Kim, Alina. "TwoSet Violin Perfects Their Practice". Chicago Maroon. Retrieved 22 December 2018.
  28. Betts, Richard (28 May 2019). "Social media adds new strings to musicians' bows". The New Zealand Herald.
  29. Hilary Hahn Ling Ling Workouts:
  30. Johari, Aarefa (1 January 2019). "New Year smiles: Want to play like a world-class musician without actually being one? Watch this". Scroll.in.
  31. Parker, Liz (24 October 2018). "Niccolò Paganini, perhaps violin's first rock star, was born on October 27". The New Classical FM. Canada: Zoomer Media.
  32. Alton, Jenna (16 August 2018). "The Clean Cut: Classical musician creates impressive version of Pachelbel's Canon using rubber chickens". Deseret News. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  33. Sweeney, Chris (1 August 2018). "Wacky World of Rubber: Making music with rubber chickens". Rubber & Plastics News. Crain Communications. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  34. Santiago, Amanda Luz Henning (10 August 2018). "Please use this rubber-chicken rendition of 'Wedding March' in your upcoming nuptials". Mashable. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  35. TwoSet Violin. 1% Violin Skills 99% Editing Skills. Retrieved 22 December 2018 – via YouTube.
  36. References to Twoset Violin's professional vs. beginner videos
  37. Viola-related videos:
  38. MacDonald, Kyle (3 January 2019). "Actors being roasted by two professional violinists is hilariously brutal". Classic FM.
  39. Cai Xuejiao (6 March 2019). "Aussie Violinists Say Chinese Celebs Fiddled With the Truth". Sixth Tone.
  40. Davis, Elizabeth (1 April 2019). "These are the best musical April Fools of 2019". Classic FM.
  41. Lebrecht, Norman (10 November 2018). "Why be the fastest violinist if you mostly play wrong notes?". Slipped Disc. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  42. Daily, Manly. "Violinist Vov Dylan plays a record-breaking 38.01 second Flight of the Bumblebee at Dee Why". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  43. TwoSet Violin (26 April 2019). New "fastest violinist in the world" is even faster (and more sacrilegious). Retrieved 5 July 2019 – via YouTube.

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