By Paulo Camacho
YouTube has been a beacon for musicians — especially those artists who would have otherwise not gotten a shot with their unconventional styles on classical instruments.
Classical instrument performance gets a bad rap. The stereotypical view of classical music performances involve a 100-piece orchestra, complete with a middle-aged conductor waving his baton in a stuffy tuxedo, leading a large number of people blowing horns and playing strings. In recent generations, being able to play a classical instrument, like the violin, the piano, or the cello wasn’t really considered “hip” or “with it.”
Leave it to the wonder of YouTube to help change that perception — that, combined with a bit of artistic expression and creativity, that is. Hop onto the media website, and you will find a bevy of budding musical artists coming up with new and exciting ways to express themselves with classical instruments.
I’ve covered musicians who have taken advantage of the YouTube platform twice in the past (You can find those articles here and here). Now, take a look at these three music YouTubers who have used their unique skills with classical instruments, in order to forge their own path to viral musical fame:
The Piano Guys
Main YT Channel: ThePianoGuys
The team of pianist Jon Schmidt, cellist Steven Sharp Nelson, videographer Paul Anderson, and music producer Al van der Beek, also known as The Piano Guys, are well-known for their live performances, and have been touring worldwide for a number of years. However, the group had humble beginnings, formulated as a part of a social media campaign for Anderson’s piano store, “The Piano Guys,” in St. George, Utah.
Their unique blends of popular songs and classical favorites, using only pianos and cellos, have helped The Piano Guys garner over 6 million followers and 1.4 billion total views since the channel’s inception in 2008. The idea for the channel formed when Anderson saw a YouTube music video by Schmidt and Nelson in 2009, entitled “Love Story Meets Viva la Vida.” It was a mashup of two well-known pop songs by Taylor Swift and Coldplay, respectively:
Anderson wanted more videos from the duo, offering his videography services to make the productions look professional. In return, Anderson would use the videos to promote his store, The Piano Guys (hence, the channel’s name), on its Facebook and YouTube pages. Ultimately, the ad campaign failed in its intended goal, and the store actually went out of business in March of 2012. But the YouTube channel went viral, accruing more than 134 million views on 30+ music videos by September 2012.
Their simple-yet-cinematic video style, combined with the classically sophisticated sounds of the piano and cello duets, have launched The Piano Guys to unseen stratospheres of viral success. They’ve been on a worldwide tour, on-and-off, since 2015, playing their renditions of popular songs, as well as their mashups with recognizable classical tunes.
Tina Guo
Main YT Channel: Tina Guo
If you have seen the hit DCEU film, “Wonder Woman,” and are a fan of its electric, powerful battle anthem, then you probably already know Tina Guo’s work. The 32-year-old Chinese-American virtuoso, born to a couple of concert string players, actually began her tutelage in music with the piano at the age of 3. Starting when she was 5, Guo learned violin from her mother, then began her training in cello from her father at the age of 7. She was well on her way to a prestigious career as a concert cellist, earning a full scholarship to the USC Thornton School of Music and studying under such celebrated figures in cello as Nathaniel Rosen and Eleonore Schoenfeld.
However, she discovered a different calling in her freshman year of college. She began dating a guitarist who played for an 80s-style metal band, and, after attending one of his shows, was inspired to incorporate the metal sound into her cello playing. All told, it took her three years to master a metal sound on the cello. She eventually dropped out of her junior year at USC, to pursue a career in professional music, with a newfound cello sound.
If you recall from an earlier article, Guo toured with fellow YouTube musician Meytal Cohen in Australia, as a part of the all-girl crossover band Metaphor. From there, her career only continued to rise — from playing with the Foo Fighters at the 2008 Grammy Awards, to playing the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, to being featured in Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour, Guo’s prospects as a premier modern cellist were high.
However, she achieved a different kind of fame through her YouTube channel, created in 2006, but didn’t gain significant traction until her famed cover of Skyrim’s Dragonborn Theme in 2017:
There, she posts covers of a variety of songs, music videos of original work — especially her unique metal take on the cello — and other behind-the-scenes vlogs. It’s her blend of aggressively graceful cello music and artistic sensuality that has garnered her channel over 36 million views and almost 300,000 subscribers.
Lindsey Stirling
Main YT Channel: Lindsey Stirling
It’s difficult to discuss the evolution of classical instrumentation and YouTube without a mention of Lindsey Stirling. After all, the 31-year-old violinist originally from Santa Ana, California was a trailblazer, of sorts — she has come to define a generation of independent music artists with a symbiotic relationship with their fans through social media.
Many know her backstory — forced to choose either violin or dance, she chose violin, and began lessons at the age of five. Her love for both dance and the violin never dissipated, however, and she would eventually become proficient in both. She would go on to create her YouTube channel, lindseystomp, in 2007, to showcase her growing talents.
But it was in 2010 where she would appear in the national spotlight. Calling herself a “hip hop violinist,” Stirling auditioned for the fifth season of “America’s Got Talent”, showcasing her now-trademark combination of violin and dance. While she ended up reaching the quarterfinals, she received harsh criticisms from the judges when she tried increasing the level of her dancing performance. She was subsequently eliminated.
As history would show, this would not discourage her — she would go on to collaborate with cinematographer and fellow YouTuber Devin Graham, for her original song, “Spontaneous Me”. The resulting 2011 music video helped boost her online presence, launching her channel into the stratosphere. Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold — and after AGT judges Piers Morgan and Sharon Osbourne called her “not good enough … to fill a theater in Vegas,” the 10.8 million subscribers and over 2.2 billion views on her YouTube channel serve as a pretty cold dish.
Her YouTube channel features a number of electrifying performances, whether they are covers of popular songs, original compositions, or collaborations with other musicians, like John Legend, Evanescence, and Pentatonix. Her original song, “Crystallize,” has nearly 200 million views:
On the strength of her gigantic social media following, Stirling would go on to produce two independently-produced albums, go on multiple world tours, and make appearances on shows like Dancing With The Stars. She would even make a return appearance on “America’s Got Talent,” after she was eliminated from the competition four years prior.