Or have you played something else in the past? What’s your favorite piece to play?
Edit: thanks for everyone that has replied. This has been so heartwarming to read :)
Or have you played something else in the past? What’s your favorite piece to play?
Edit: thanks for everyone that has replied. This has been so heartwarming to read :)
Viola! I like its range of sound and the fact that we get our own (alto) clef makes me feel special. But you end up playing a lot of lame parts when the violins get all the melodies and solos.
Is it the same instrument that Jordi Savall plays and adapts for ? in french it’s called Violle de Gambe so not 100% sure it’s the same thing
I play early music, and what we call a viol de gamba is a different thing; the viola is fretless and held under the chin like a violin, while the viol de gamba is a renaissance/baroque-era fretted instrument that is held between the legs and comes in treble, tenor, and bass sizes.
Savall plays the latter.
To further confuse the matter, there’s a renaissance-era instrument called the vielle that is played more like a modern violin or viola.
Thanks for the disambiguation… I could have sworn that the viol de gamba was fretless ! but after looking it up I can confirm that it’s not.
Yup, they use wrapped gut frets. They’re moveable so that the musicians could adjust intonation in the period before equal temperament was invented.
Can you imagine having to shift individual frets, untying and retying them to get the instrument in tune?
What a pain in the ass. No wonder they went extinct.
I play the renaissance lute, which also uses tied frets. I just play in equal temperament because its easier and my ear isn’t that good. I’m merely an ambitious amateur though, maybe I’ll get into it one of these days.
I play guitar, but I’ve never held a lute. I’d love to try one sometime. They are astonishingly beautiful works of art. I love everything about them.
Goddammit, now I have to buy a lute.
It’s so hard to get into it; I’d never played one before I picked it up either.
This is a good entry-level lute. I had wanted one for a while before I got mine, but I was worried about spending so much and having it be unplayable.
I fortunately talked to another musician who had one of these already and he sounded fantastic, so I decided to take the plunge. I’m glad I did! There’s nothing like playing period music on the actual instrument that would have been used (modern convenience like temperament aside) and reading from historical tabs.
I ran into the guy again about a month ago, and he has an incredible luthier-made theorbo that sounds amazing. Maybe I’ll get one of those some day lol!
While they look similar, the violin and the gamba family are separate branches, sort of musical cousins.
Of all the stringed instruments, the upright string bass is the closest in shape to the gamba family, and is technically evolved from that. The shoulders on a violin, viola, or cello, come straight out from the neck, while the shoulders on a string bass slope down. That’s a typical characteristic difference in shape between violins and gambas.
Viola sounds amazing but yes, fun pieces are written for violin.
Do you know any great viola music that is on par with great violin music?
Mozart famously loved violas so he frequently gave them some love and he wrote Sinfonia concertante in E-flat major where they are the star of the show.
Beautiful piece, I can see why you love to play it, too! Must be super fun to bounce back and forth with the violinist and carry the melody.
I think one of my biggest regrets is stopping playing violin. I will pick it back up one day when I have more time, nothing else has brought me the same kind of joy, not even the other instruments I’ve learned over the years.
That dark velvetiness that violas have is gorgeous. It is too bad that not much is written for it, but at least you can adapt violin or cello music.
I grew up playing trombone. There’s no good music for that either, and you can’t even adapt other stuff well to it. I never enjoyed playing it back then, even though I love music. Today, I’m a guitarist. Much more satisfying than trombone.