Back Viola da gamba ALS كمان الساق Arabic كمان الساق ARZ Виола да гамба Bulgarian Viola d'arc Catalan Viola da gamba Czech Feiol Welsh Viola da gamba Danish Viola da gamba German Βιόλα ντα γκάμπα Greek

Viol

For the municipality in Germany, see Viöl in the collective municipality of Viöl (Amt).
Not to be confused with Viola or Violin.
Viola da gamba
String instrument
Other namesgamba (informal)
Hornbostel–Sachs classification321.322-71
(Composite chordophone sounded by a bow)
DevelopedLate 15th century from the vihuela
Related instruments
Sound sample
Carl Friedrich Abel (1723–1787) – From 27 Pieces for Unaccompanied Viola da Gamba, New York. NYp, Drexel 5871(ca.1790-99): [Arpeggio], AbelWV A1:A26
Performed by Phillip W. Serna, Viol
Problems playing this file? See media help.

The viola da gamba[a] (Italian: [ˈvjɔːla da (ɡ)ˈɡamba]), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch of each of the strings.[1] Although treble, tenor and bass were most commonly used, viols came in different sizes, including pardessus (high treble, developed in 18th century), treble, alto, small tenor, tenor, bass and contrabass (called violone).[1] Separating these from other bowed string instruments such as the viola da braccio (viol for the arm) was the instruments' orientation; members of the older viol family were played with the neck oriented upwards, the rounded bottom downwards to settle on the lap or between the knees.[1]

The viola da gamba uses the alto clef.[citation needed] Seven and occasionally eight frets made of "stretched gut", tied on the fingerboard around the instrument's neck.[1] Frets tied in this manner instead of permanently fixed as on a guitar allow fine-tuning to improve tuning.[1] Frets enable the performer to stop the strings more cleanly, improve consistency of intonation and lend the stopped notes a tone that better matches the open strings.[citation needed] Viols first appeared in Spain and Italy in the mid-to-late 15th century, and were most popular in the Renaissance[2] and Baroque (1600–1750) periods.[3] Early ancestors include the Arabic rebab and the medieval European vielle,[4][5] but later, more direct possible ancestors include the Venetian viole[6] and the 15th- and 16th-century Spanish vihuela, a six-course plucked instrument tuned like a lute (and also like a present-day viol)[4][5] that looked like but was quite distinct from (at that time) the four-course guitar[7] (an earlier chordophone).[8]

Although bass viols superficially resemble cellos, viols are different in numerous respects from instruments of the violin family: the viol family has flat rather than curved backs, sloped rather than rounded shoulders, c holes rather than f holes, and five to seven rather than four strings; some of the many additional differences are tuning strategy (in fourths with a third in the middle—similar to a lute—rather than in fifths), the presence of frets, and underhand rather than overhand bow grip.[9]

A modern player of the viol is commonly known as a gambist, violist /ˈvaɪəlɪst/, or violist da gamba. "Violist" is a homograph of the word commonly used since the mid-20th century to refer to a player of the viola, which can cause confusion in written/printed texts when not clear from the context.

  1. ^ a b c d e f Ian Woodfield; Lucy Robinson (1984). "Viol". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 3. pp. 736–753.
  2. ^ "Putto holding a "viole de gambe" in the Musiconis database". Musiconis.huma-num.fr. Retrieved 18 April 2021.[permanent dead link]
  3. ^ Woodfield, Ian; Robinson, Lucy. Viol [viola da gamba, gamba]. In: Sadie, Stanley, ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 19. London, UK: Macmillan Publishers Ltd; 1980;791–808.
  4. ^ a b Otterstedt, Annette. The Viol: History of an Instrument. Kassel: Barenreiter;-Verlag Karl Votterle GmbH & Co; 2002.
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Woodfield 1984 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Rodriguez Alvira, José. "La vihuela y la guitarra en el siglo XVI". Aulaactual.com. Retrieved July 18, 2013.
  8. ^ Rault, Christian. "The emergence of new approaches to plucked instruments, 13th – 15th centuries. Michalestein, 2001". Prolyra.free.fr. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved July 18, 2013. Rault notes that the first mention of the guitarra was in the late-13th- or early-14th-century Latin manuscript Ars Musica by the Spaniard Juan Gil de Zamora
  9. ^ Vasquez, Jose. "The violin (or viola da braccio) and the viola da gamba families: differences and similarities". Orpheon.org. Archived from the original on May 18, 2013. Retrieved July 18, 2013.


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