Similar to the lyra viol, in Italy, “viola bastarda” referred to a virtuosic style of viol music, where a likely smallish bass viol would play a highly decorated version of a madrigal. Viols used for lyra repertoire were also smaller than consort basses and probably slightly smaller than division viols. The term “lyra viol” refers to the English practice of playing from tablature rather than pitch notation and employing a wide range of different tunings. The division viol, used in seventeenth-century England for playing melodies with elaborate variations and ornamentation was smaller than a consort bass. The versatility of the bass viol led to its playing different styles of music, aided by the proliferation of basses in a range of sizes. There will be a video about this soon.Other sizes used less frequently in consort music include the alto, which can be tuned a whole step higher than the tenor (A –a’) or a whole step lower than a treble (c–c’’), and the great bass, which is tuned an octave lower than the tenor (GG–g). When you have to tune your violin or viola a lot (when it’s new or there are lots of changes in temperature or humidity) check if your bridge is still standing up straight.Push the pegs into the peg box while you are tuning.Use the fine tuners for small differences and the pegs for larger differences.When it has a violin mode, use that, but not for the viola. Just to summarize the most important things around tuning: Just take your time and tune your instrument every time you practice: preferably daily. It takes quite some practice to become handy in tuning your violin and viola. Make sure to push the pegs inside the peg box while you are turning them. When you just turn, they will come out of the peg box. Remember that the violin or viola doesn’t have guitar mechanic.

Otherwise you can tune too high and your string can snap. When you are tuning, please always check where you are by watching the tuner constantly. This means the string is tuned too low, not too high. For example: when the G string is very low, it becomes a high F sharp. When you use the chromatic mode, your tuner can indicate a tone that doesn’t match your string. Some tuners have a special violin mode that only recognizes the violin strings. When you pluck a string, the tuner shows you which tone it is and whether it’s in tune, too low or too high. How does a tuner work? When you talk, the tuner reacts on the sound of your voice. When you want to learn to tune with a tuning fork, watch this video: How (and WHY?) to Tune Your Violin with a Tuning Fork? As it’s important to tune your violin or viola every time you play, I recommend using a tuner. Pros: Use your existing viola, and in many cases, easily mount or remove the pickups. However, for beginners, this might be very difficult. Simply a traditional viola equipped with added electronics, an acoustic-electric viola can have pickups mounted on the body with soft clamps or a special adhesive putty, or on the bridge. I know some mnemonics for this in Dutch, but please enlighten me in the comments about the English mnemonic!Įventually it’s best and most accurate to tune with a tuning fork. The viola is tuned C G D A for high to low. The violin is tuned G D A E from low to high. It’s handy to have four fine tuners on your violin. When you are just beginning to learn to tune, I recommend using just the fine tuners. For tuning larger differences you can use the tuning pegs. For tuning small differences you can use the fine tuners.

Electric viola instrument tuner