UPDATE: The concert has been canceled due to weather
Michigan electric violinist David “Dixon” Hammond is known for his spiritual, improvised music. He’ll perform as Dixon’s Violin in a free concert Friday night at 6 p.m. at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.
Dixon is a regular on the music festival circuit including the week-long community art fest Burning Man. He’s also done two TED Talks.
Though Dixon was classically trained in violin since the age of ten, for many years music was more of a hobby. But about a decade ago, a musical experiment spurred Dixon to quit his day job in the tech industry.
“I improvised for the first time and I’d always dreamed…I didn’t know how people can do that. How do you make music without having all the notes written down? It seemed impossible to me and I really wanted to do it," he says. "And I tried and it just changed my when I started to express myself from my own heart.”
Dixon then started playing with bands and quickly realized that the volume of his acoustic violin couldn’t compete with electric guitars and drums. So, he took up the electric violin. But then he got more envious of his guitarist friends.
“They’re using foot pedals and they’ve all these toys and they fascinated me. And I said to myself, ‘Well, gosh, I wonder if these toys will work on my electric violin?’ And I plugged them in and sure enough they did,” says Dixon.
Dixon says he uses effects pedals and electric violin to make what he calls “digital violin.” But don’t let the word “digital” fool you, none of Dixon’s music is pre-recorded or even rehearsed. All his music is improvised on the spot.
“What I love about that is it allows me to really feel into: What mood am I in in this moment? What direction energetically do I want to take this right now?" says Dixon. "I don’t want to play songs at people. I don’t want to just have this preconceived plan and go through a routine. Rather, I love creating new things all the time and it’s so much fun for me to do that from scratch every time.”
Dixon sees his music as very spiritual. He has even assisted a few people in vision quests.
“As I progressed I started to have these really deep experiences with audience members—you know people would be in tears or people would have these revelations or catharsis," he explains. "Maybe they were angry before and they let that go and they feel some peace. Maybe they have just this really spiritual, soul-moving experience.”
Dixon says his goal is to make his music as emotional moving for people as possible. Dixon's Violin will give a free concert Friday night at 6 p.m. at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.
