the.com/viol
the string instrument too cool to fret, except it has frets like a guitar
means A viol is a bowed, fretted string instrument of the Renaissance and Baroque, held upright on or between the legs and played with an underhand bow, the ancestor of the cello and double bass.
from From Old Provençal 'viola' or 'viula,' the name for a stringed instrument played with a bow, which spread into Old French and Italian as 'viola.' The deeper root is uncertain but the word is part of a tangled family that also gave us 'viola,' 'violin' (literally 'little viol'), and 'violoncello.' The English 'viol' arrived by the 1400s–1500s as these instruments became fashionable; the same Romance stock may be distantly related to Medieval Latin 'vitula,' a stringed instrument — a possible cousin of 'fiddle' — though the exact path is debated.
- fret deal
- Gut frets tied around the neck, unlike violins
- family size
- Came in treble, tenor, and bass voices
- held low
- Bowed upright on the lap or legs
- name twist
- Viola da gamba means leg-viol in Italian
- comeback
- Early-music revival rescued it from baroque obscurity
viola da gamba — six-stringed bowed instrument prominent in renaissance and baroque music, 16th-18th centuries
viol consort — ensemble of viols that performed together in english court music, especially under henry viii