When he first picked up the violin at age 4, Peter Lee Johnson could not have known that the instrument would one day net him an online audience of tens of thousands of viewers and allow him to grace the stage with the lead of a hit TV show.

The videos on his YouTube channel titled “PeterLeeJohnson” have received a total of more than 75,000 views.

Last month, Johnson began recording violin covers of Top 40 songs such as “Club Can’t Handle Me” by Flo Rida and Cee Lo Green’s “F*** You.”

Now a member of multiple performing groups and on his way to becoming a YouTube sensation, Johnson, 20, says that when he first started playing violin he just “had a knack for it.”

Throughout his childhood, Johnson honed this “knack” through classical violin lessons, ultimately landing himself a spot in the Seattle Youth Symphony.

Johnson quickly realized, however, that while he was passionate about violin, classical music was not for him. He recalls of his symphony days, “The conductors probably didn’t like me that much…I was kind of a trouble-maker.”

Elaborating on the cause of his rebellion, Johnson explained that he tired of playing the same classical pieces over and over, and that he preferred to improvise his own material with the violin.

“I would get bored of [classical pieces] and start playing other stuff and people would be like, ‘Oh, how are you doing that?’”

This inkling to branch out from the classical field was likely connected to Johnson’s participation in his dad’s blues band—he played violin and his dad played harmonica—through which he was able to experience playing the violin in other musical genres.

In the past few years, Johnson, a sophomore in the popular music program at USC’s Thornton School of Music, has enjoyed the freedom to experiment with playing in the styles of Pop, R&B and Hip Hop.

Other than his unorthodox choices in songs, what really sets Johnson apart from other violinists is that his recordings are completely freestyle. He uses no sheet music and improvises throughout the song, sometimes even weaving in excerpts of classical pieces, as he did while recording his favorite cover so far, “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz.

Johnson modestly said of this talent, “I could always just play whatever I heard in my head…I never thought of myself as a prodigy.”

A few days before classes started this semester, Johnson auditioned for a band headed by Mark Salling, the actor who plays Puck in the hit Fox series, “Glee.”

The audition proved to be successful; Johnson now rehearses with Salling—who is talking with Fox in hopes of being able to promote a CD—every weekend.

Johnson is also part of a hip-hop/R&B/punk group called the “Beat Advocate,” that recently performed at the Cali Dance Fest.

As far as the future goes, Johnson deadpans, “Well, since I was little I wanted to be a dentist. I decided that wasn’t for me though… Hopefully I tour with someone big, which would be fun for a little bit…to get to travel around the world. Eventually I’d like to score movies or produce beats.”

“Prodigy” or not, he is headed toward an exciting musical career.

Reach Whitney here.
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