Hitting the right notes: violinist's Braves videos a viral hit

MARIETTA, Ga. (FOX 5 Atlanta) - Some music goes hand-in-batting glove with baseball: fans singing 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame," an organ playing between innings. Classical string instruments, however, are usually not in the repertoire. Not yet, at least.

"These things definitely come very randomly," said musician Amber Dobbs. "I can't explain it."

Dobbs, a Marietta freelance musician who also gives private music lessons, is striking the right notes among Braves fans with widely-viewed videos.

Dobbs has long made fun -- "silly," in her words -- videos while playing her instrument of choice, the violin. She posts some of them to social media, mostly for friends and family to see. Earlier this year, the avid Braves fan started doing Braves-themed videos; in some of them, she plays multiple parts of the same song, even singing Braves-inspired lyrics to popular songs.

Her lineup of tunes includes: "All About that Kakes," based off "All About that Base" by Meghan Trainor; a song about Ronald Acuña to the tune of "Havana" by Camila Cabello; and an ode to pitcher Max Fried (and, specifically, his great hair) set to "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson.

The song, however, that really took off, was about rookie pitching sensation Mike Soroka.

"That one was other level, for sure," said Dobbs.

The song, subbing Soroka's name into the titular line from The Knack's "My Sharona," has almost 200,000 views on Twitter helped along by a retweet from Soroka himself.

"[People sing it to me] a lot," said Soroka. "It's something I've got sent from multiple family members saying, 'have you seen this yet?' A great rendition on her part. It was pretty cool."

Dobbs' latest hit, "Free-Bombin'," sings along to "Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty. As much as Dobbs loves baseball and her Braves, however, she loves music more. She hopes these songs open people's eyes to what classical music can be, not what they might think it is.

"Baseball ... it's not slow and boring. Being a string player doesn't mean you're old-fashioned and buttoned up, you know?" said Dobbs.

Dobbs says having people connect with music in a new way, especially those who didn't expect to, is more gratifying than even having her favorite players notice her work.

"Somebody sent me a video the other day of their three-year-old daughter watching my video," said Dobbs, "and said, 'now my three-year-old daughter is obsessed with violin!' I told him I was sitting there crying like a crazy person because I fell in love with music at a really young age!"

Dobbs says she regularly gets recommendations via social media for her next song (though she's not discouraging anyone from sending their own ideas). She recently met Soroka briefly after an event at The Battery, and the pitcher told her he was a fan of the song in his honor.

Here are links to some of Dobbs' videos: "M-M-M-Mike Soroka", Acuna/Havana, "Free-Bombin'", Fried/Billie Jean, "All About that Kakes"

The lyrics to most of Dobbs' songs are in the tweet directly below the tweet containing the video