What is a Viola da Gamba?

If you play in your school orchestra, you play a violin or something in the violin family.  But if you lived in late Renaissance or early Baroque Europe, you’d likely be playing a different sort of bowed stringed instrument.

The violin as we know it didn’t appear until the middle of the 1500’s.  Even then it wasn’t used for “serious” music in the courts or church.  It was an instrument of the common folk, like the modern banjo or dulcimer. 

If you played for the nobility, as the composer Claudio Monteverdi did, you would have had an instrument in the viol family.  The viol was descended from a Spanish or Moorish instrument similar to a guitar.  Like the guitar, the viol has a flat, fretted neck with six strings.  It is commonly called the “viola da gamba,” because it is played between the legs like a cello.  (“Gamba” means “leg.”)  The viol is strung with gut and has a softer sound than instruments in the violin family.

Viols came in many sizes, and it was very common for a Renaissance household to own a selection of them.  A group of viols playing together was called a consort. 

During the Baroque period, the viola da gamba was gradually replaced by the violin and its relatives.  The violin was louder and more able to project.  This made it a better choice for players and composers who favored the new (homophonic) style of music, in which individual voices were given the melody (see the article below to find out more.)

For more information on the viola da gamba, visit the Viola da Gamba Society of America’s website: www.vdgsa.org .