page_title: Viol
section_title: Different versions
hierarchical_section_title: Viol / Different versions
caption_attribution_description: Violone or Baixo viola da gamba
context_page_description: The viol, viola da gamba, 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. Frets on the viol are usually made of gut, tied on the fingerboard around the instrument's neck, to enable the performer to stop the strings more cleanly. Frets improve consistency of intonation and lend the stopped notes a tone that better matches the open strings. Viols first appeared in Spain in the mid to late 15th century and were most popular in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Early ancestors include the Arabic rebab and the medieval European vielle, but later, more direct possible ancestors include the Venetian viole and the 15th- and 16th-century Spanish vihuela, a 6-course plucked instrument tuned like a lute that looked like but was quite distinct from the 4-course guitar.
context_section_description: Gambas (as the name is often abbreviated) come in seven sizes: "pardessus de viole" (which is relatively rare, exclusively French and did not exist before the 18th century), treble (in French dessus), alto, tenor (in French taille), bass, and two sizes of contrabass (also known as a violone), the smaller one tuned an octave below the tenor (violone in G, sometimes called great bass or in French grande basse) and the larger one tuned an octave below the bass (violone in D).
  Their tuning (see next section) alternates G and D instruments: pardessus in G, treble in D, tenor in G, bass in D (the seven string bass was a French invention, with an added low A), small violone in G, large violone in D. The alto, between the treble and the tenor, does not fit in this scheme. The treble has a size similar to a viola but with a deeper body; the typical bass is about the size of a cello. The pardessus and the treble were held vertically in the lap. The English made smaller basses known as division viols, and the still-smaller Lyra viol. The viola bastarda was a similar type of viol used in Italy for a virtuosic style of viol repertoire and performance. German consort basses were larger than the French instruments designed for continuo.
  Those instruments were not all equally common. The typical Elizabethan consort of viols was composed of six instruments: two basses, two tenors and two trebles, or one bass, three tenors and two trebles (see Chest of viols). Thus the bass, tenor and treble were the central members of the family as far as music written specifically for viols is concerned. Besides consort playing the bass could also be used as a solo instrument (there were also smaller basses designed especially for a virtuosic solo role, see above division viol, lyra viol, viola bastarda). And the bass viol could also serve as a continuo bass. The pardessus was a French 18th century instrument that was introduced to allow ladies to play mostly violin or flute music but eventually acquired its own repertoire. The alto was a relatively rare smaller version of the tenor. The violones were never part of the consort of viols but functioned as the contrabass of all kinds of instrumental combinations.
caption: Violone or great bass viol. Painting by Sir Peter Lely, c. 1640, Dutch-born English Baroque era painter. Note the Italianate shape, square shoulders, and F-holes, apart from its massive size.
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