Through its concerts and influence, the Society has helped to interest musicians in studying the baroque and renaissance instruments and their music. The Society has also fostered young performers by lending its reputation to their introduction. Questions about musical instruments are received, as well as queries from persons who are doing research on musical subjects. The Instruments During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe, two families of related, yet distinctly different, stringed instruments reached the culmination of design and craftsmanship - violins and viols. In the centuries that followed, composers wrote more and more for the instruments of the violin family, so that today, the violins are the standard concert instruments.
Viols are both visually and tonally different from violins.
The sound of a viol is more gentle. Violins are tuned in even intervals, viols are not. Viols typically have from four to fourteen strings, while violin-family instruments have four. The harpsichord is a keyboard instrument in which the strings are plucked, rather than hammered as with the piano. Harpsichords generally have two or more sets of strings, and often have devices to allow the player to modify the sound of the instrument.