The Cipher for Viola da Gamba and Lute   Page 1   Page 2   Page 3   Page 4   Page 5   Page 6          . . . and still more shapes (returning to viola da gamba) . . .     Below; early consort of viols, transitional hybrid with earlier Renaissance body style fiddles, Francesco Francia, 1500, Italy       below; another Francesco Francia, 1500, Italy       below; viol with so-called violin-corners before 4 string violins probably even existed, Zacchia, 1540, Italy       below; viol, Hans Baldung, Dutch, 1529       below; viols woodcut, Sylvestro Ganassi’s Regola Rubertina, Italy, 1542             below; viol, Apollo and the Muse,  Gaspar ab Avibus (Osella) or Giorgio Ghisi, 1557       Below; Viol player, from organ-case doors at Parma Cathedral, Italy. Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli, 1562.       below; viol in Saint Cecilia painting by Lelio Orsi, 1511-1587, Italian.       Below; surviving tenor viol, believed to be by Gasparo Da Salo, 16th century, Italian.       Below; one would think that the above instrument, with it’s unusual and extreme carved top, would be a one-off, but see the painting below. Viol with Gasparo Da Salo shape (line for line) by painter Giovanna Serodine, Coronation of the Virgin, 1625, Italian (fresco in Parish Church at Ascona).       Below; and another, viol in Gasparo Da Salo shape, in  a fresco by the Spanish painter El Greco, The Annunciation, 1597-1600.       Below; Desecration! Sacrilege! Gasparo da Salo shaped viol chopped into a cello! Actually made by Dominico Russo, mid-16th century, probably in Brescia, Italy.       below; viol, Dutch, anon       Below; Benvenuto Tisi (aka Garofalo) 1533, Vision of St.Augustine, Italy.       Below; detail of Viol, Benvenuto Tisi (aka Garofalo) 1533, Vision of St.Augustine, Italy.       below; viol, Garofalo, Italy, 1500-25       below; viol, Pordenone, Italy, 1535       Below; same as the above.       Iconography showing viols played kneeling on one knee (next half dozen or so)     Below; tenor viol, played kneeling, Itallian, mid 1500s, Bonifacio Veronese.       French, Nicolas Houel, 1583       Below; anan, 16th, Italy       Below: Paolo Veronese, Italian, another detail from Wedding (or marriage) Feast at Cana, c.1560. Large bass viol played kneeling.       Below; Bartolomo Cesi, Italy, 1571       below; viol, “cello”-shape (but we know better), Conques, Dutch, mid-1600       below; viol, Freyse, German, mid-1600       Below; Portrait of Nicolas Hautman, German born viol virtuoso living in France, c.1650       below; viol common standard shape, Dutch, mid-1600       Below; two standard types and shapes of viols, Christopher Simpson, English, plate from his book  and discussion  of the Division Viol, two editions, 1659 and 1667. He prefers the one on the left (see caption at bottom of figure).       Below: viol, Jacob Duck, Dutch, early-mid 1600’s       Below; pardessus de viole or treble viol, c1730-40, France. Portrait thought to be of Louis de Caix d'Hervelois (famous French viol player and composer) and his wife? Marie-Anne.       Below; tenor or alto viol, Nicolas Mignard (Mignard dAvignon), St. Cecilia, c.1650, French.       Below; violone, Eustache Le Sueur, Muses, French, 1652-55.       Below; viol, Jacob Toorenvliet, Musical Company, c.1670-80.       Below, two Gambe (bass and treble) and a Guitar (in the background, you can see it’s body depth if you look closely). Detail of painting by Jean Garnier, French, portrait (and still life) of King Louis XIV Protector Of the Arts, 1672. Louis XIV was a lover of both viols and guitars (in real life)       Below; viol by Jan Vermeer, Lady Seated at a Virginal, Dutch, 1673.       Below; viol, Jan Verkolje, Dutch, c.1674       Below; viol (far left front) and guitar, Francois Puget, Reunion of Musicians, Louis XIVths court musicians, composer Jean-Baptiste Lully playing lute, 1687.       Below: Baryton Viol, 7 fretted strings plus additional sympathetic or thumb plucked strings (running under the widened neck). Look up Hayden’s Baryton Trios,  composed between 1765 and 1775, probably the last major works by a Major composer for viols.       Below, unidentified, tenor viol. I’d guess c.1700 or later.       Below, seven string viol, Constantin Netscher (painter), Portrait of Viol Player, 1668-1723.       Below; viol with highly decorated inlayed neck and tail, Salzburg, c1696. The other smaller instrument is a viola d’amore.       Below; five strings and C-holes, probably a large viol, probably late 1600’s to early 1700s? Subject-matter Is suppsedly Pope Benedetto III’s visit to San Zaccaria monastary?       Below; French: portrait of Marin Marais (famous French composer and viol player) with seven string viol, 1704. Note; before I collected all of the 16th century viol iconography, most people thought this picture was a fluke, i.e. someone holding or playing their viol like a guitar, across the lap, with neck out to the left. Now we know better. This hold and posture was in fact common-place,  the norm, for tenor and alto viols in the 16th century.             Below; title page form Marin Marais’ Pieces de Viole. _Book II, 1701. Viole is the French word for viol.       Below, detail of viol, by Jacques de Boyer (fake signature of Jean Baptiste Oudry), French, 1693       Below; viol, Silvestre, Portrait of Prince Emanuel Franz Joseph, Bayern, 1707.       Below; treble viol, Johann Kupetzky, c.1720       Below; viol, Francois Le Moyne, Allegoryof Music, French, c.1730       Below; 7 string Viola da Gamba Painting: by Jean-Martial Fredou, of J.B. Forqueray, 1740?       Below; small seven string iol, Joseph Marie Vien I, Personification of Music, French, c.1740-50.       Below; detail from a French painting c.1750 showing cello and viol performing side by side. Paul Joseph Delcloche (artist), Concert at the Court of Prince Eveque de Liegeat, Chateau De Seraing, France.       Below; viol by Jean Marc Nattier, portait of Madame Henriette, French, 1754.       Below; tenor viol, still going strong in 1755, Franz Georg Hermann, Alegorie of music.       Below; viol, Etienne Jeaurat,  Musical Soiree, French, c.1740-60.       Below; treble or Pardessus viol, French, 18th century.       Below; viol by Louis Carrogis (Louis de Carmontelle), Monsieur Piton and Daughter, French, 1760.       Below; portrait of Carl Friedrich Abel with his viola da gambal, also by Thomas Gainsborough, c.1765.       Below; another portrait of Carl Friedrich Abel with his viol, by Thomas Gainsborough, 1777.             Arpeggione (Bowed Guitar) The 19th century bowed-guitar revival that never took off, it came too soon after the viola da gamba (the first bowed guitars) bit the dust       Below, Arpeggione Bowed Guitar with embedded metal frets, fully fretted fretboard, guitar tuned, EADGBE, or 44434, gut strung. First built in 1823 by J. G. Staufer [who worked for the famous 19th century guitar builder C.F. Martin]. Pictured is a reproduction instrument.  The composer Franz Schubert wrote a Sonata for this instrument, a 19th century bowed guitar. Arpeggiones, modern bowed guitars (19th century modeled), are yet another instrument that the cello players now assume belong to them ! --  just another one of their toys, a curriosity, for their weekend entertainment or moonlighting gig, a little known secret to be kept largely to themselves. I hope you can get your head around that, because I sure can’t -- 6 strings, modern guitar tuned, EADGBE, fully fretted fretboards, fixed embedded metal frets, is an instrument guitarists don’t need, don’t need to know about, have no rights too, it belongs to cellists, because it’s bowed?  Some even mater-of-factly, casually, arrogantly, classify the Arpeggione as a varient or relative of cello -- hello?! I’ve also seen no less than two current violin-cello string quartets who’ve had the nerve to appropriate the name Arpeggione and use it as the moniker for their violin bands ! -- how creative. I guess appropriating our first name, viola, wasn’t good enough for them, let’s go for broke, after all, noone’s looking, noone will ever notice, least of all the guitarists, hell, they never counted anyway, viola da what?  ;-)       Below; 1824 illustration of an Arpeggione bowed guitar       Below; another 19th century illustration of an Arpeggione bowed guitar       Below; another 19th century illustration of an Arpeggione bowed guitar       Below; surviving 19th century Arpeggione bowed guitar, attributed to Anton Mitteis, Leitmeritz, 1st quarter of the 1800’s.       Below; another surviving 19th century Arpeggione bowed guitar, Salzburg museum.       Below; fully fretted neck, metal frets, detail of surviving 19th century Arpeggione bowed guitar, Salzburg museum.       Below; peg box and first 3 frets detail -- surviving 19th century Arpeggione bowed guitar, Salzburg museum.       Below; portrait of Viennese (Austria) composer Franz Schubert. Schubert wrote his Arpeggione Sonata in 1824 (he died in 1828).       Below; Schubert Arpeggione Sonata, score cover (showing another unique instrument)           Lastly, the third parties in the game I believe have gotten it wrong are the music historians at large, the ones who would have you believe that chords and chording, polyphony or homophony, are the invention of the Renaissance. Perhaps it just depends on how broadly one defines the term and associated timeline dates. Play the darn open position, 4 course, all-4ths chords: p1 p2 the ones in use and documented as such in the mid 1300’s [in a treatise known as Berkeley Music Theory MS 744, because it’s housed at UC Berkeley, Ca, USA], or these all-4ths root-position triads, or the 4 course “4th 3rd 4th” chords (triads only sample), or the  4 course “4th 3rd 4th” open position chords , 5 course Vihuela chords, or even the 6 course open position Lute chords (which instrument, according to Alfonso X’s other well known commissioned work, The Book of Games and it’s illuminations, existed in 1250), take your pick it doesn’t matter, it’s all the same stuff — trust me, I’ve been going blind for years drawing all these fretboard charts up and it’s all the same stuff over and over and over, and all the proof anyone should need. But then, you don’t have to trust me, see for yourselves. The material on this entire web site from Ukulele to Viola da Gamba and Lute is testament to it. Look at the patterns generated by all of these instruments, play them, and listen to them. In other words, no one, neither the guitar nor violin archaeologists are going to pay much attention to chords if they assume that chords didn’t even exist! And in my view, if you believe that  chording is unique at all prior to even that, you’re either not a musician or you’re too fixated on monk music ;’). And of course, even if you do place your “when did polyphony arise” marker within the timeline at the Renaissance mark (whatever specific year you like), who and what was most responsible for that blossoming? Might it have been (shhh) the greater lute/guitar family? Or perhaps even more generally the 4ths tuned fretted string family, whether plucked, strummed, or bowed? Though not a history book per say, here’s a current so called definition(?) of what a Viola da Gamba is: American Heritage® Dictionary viola da gamba NOUN: 1. A stringed instrument, the bass of the viol family, with approximately the range of the cello. Also called bass viol, gamba, viol. 2. An organ stop of eight-foot pitch yielding tones similar to those of the viola da gamba. ETYMOLOGY: Italian : viola, viol + da, of, for + gamba, leg. Notice, there’s no mention of it being related to lute, meaning related by tuning and intentional synchronization among the two, viols were tuned exactly the same way as lutes, same 4ths tuning with mid 3rd, had the same same number of strings, same chromatic frets, etc. And of course there’s no mention that Viols share a common ancestor of the modern guitar, the vihuelas and violas (vihuela d’arco, viola cum arculo), i.e. that viols are in and of the guitar family, tuned almost exactly like guitar, 4ths tuning with (near) mid 3rd, same frets, same chord voicings, same inherent music but bumped over one string, just like lute, etc. Elsewhere, the typical and most common context you’ll hear the name Viola da Gamba mentioned is in relation to Violin and Cello, i.e. the history of those instruments, or the relationships and evolutions among the Viols and Violins. My copy of the Harvard Dictionary of Music, 2nd Ed, 1972, contains a two page line drawing chart of the “Violin family”. Among the violin family members shown are all of the Viola da Gambas (and then only one of them is shown with frets)! Viols are Guitars. They are not in the violin family. [If you want to have some fun, start searching the web for Viola da Gamba information and see how many of our educators, including Early Music Societies, Viola da Gamba Societies, Lute Societies, history purveyors of Renaissance and Baroque music, let alone history of Guitar sites!, mention the fact that viols are guitars. And those that do utter the word guitar-like once somewhere in one throw-away sentence don’t really know the story, nor tell it (unless they got a good part of it from me) they’re just parroting a suspicion without knowing nor showing the real connections. And further, even if the did know, they really weren’t in the business of sharing it with you, getting on to your radar, you guitarists, so what good or difference would it have made? None. They exist primarily to serve themselves (a tiny little circle of playmates and pretenders, a small orbit, patting themselves on the back for God knows what, (refereing here to the early music revivalists and viola da gamba societies who treat viols as if they were thier personal private property and discovery, little pet toys, or the right and proper domain of cellists (!?!) wanting to play early music. A guitarist is not going to go searching for the history and origin of viola da gamba if he or she has never in their life even heard of a Viola da What ?!   [Was that a rant? ;’)]  In other words, the focus and focal points, and the true relationships are way off, and perceptions have been twisted for a long time. I guess it’s just presenting something in the light you want or need to have it seen in, light of high faluting late Classical music and violins, or/and high falutin formal early music and the history of same, rather than the guitars , the lutes, and the people who play them, now and then, that culture, those people, that 800 year unbroken lute/guitar tradition and training ground. Well, I think we can finally put another spin on things ;-) It’s a guitar! Our long lost, long miscatalogued, and misfiled, Bowed Guitar. If you think about it, that’s really the classical music world’s biggest claim to fame, the violins and violin driven symphonies and symphony orchestras. We, the “guitar culture”, can’t compete, aren’t in the same class, because we haven’t got violins. Well I’ve got news for you; we did have violins, they were called Viola da Gambas, we can compete, and we have done all along. And the guitarists aren’t at all confined to the folk traditions and folk tradition training grounds either. Putting it all together Perhaps the largest point I’m trying to make here within these pages and within this writing is that once you can firmly and unmistakably make the connection from guitar back to viola da gamba and lute (make that short hundred year history-of-guitar-family link from 1850 back to 1750) then everything falls into place. The viola da gamba and lute players that make up a large part of so called Classical European Music and a large part of the training ground that produced our Late Classical music were guitar players and their guitars. And that instrument (the music, harmony, and melody potential embedded within it and it’s tuning(s) is perhaps the true Classical instrument (not pianos, and not violins). It was us, they were us, we are them, we (the players of fretted fourths string instruments) are the classical music, of almost all forms and fashions formal and folk. A guitarist (of any kind) in 2003 can look all the way back to 1200 and beyond and see all that he or she and their line have done, and take pride in it. We had a big hand in all of that music, it is us, and ours. A great majority of it was the lute-guitar family directly, and another large share was the lute-guitar family to the extent that it helped shape the forms, set the stage, and provided the training ground, both for individual musicians and the larger forms as a whole. We and our instrument are more than respectable. We lute/viol/vihuela/viola/guitar/theorbo players were a primary engine all along. And our instruments were a primary engine of polyphony and composition all along, AND a primary source of the West’s routine awareness of, exposure to, and use of, the CHROMATIC SCALE. Think about that for a minute. Lutes, Vihuelas, Viols, Guitars, have been chromatically fretted for at least 800 years or more. Major scale my foot, and piano keyboards my behind ;’) It looks to me like it was the fourths tuned chromatically fretted lute/guitars, the potential embedded therein, the chromatic scale, and the lute/guitar players all along, so many things were. It’s amazing to me what a mere couple hundred years of ignorance, and the absence of one key player, viola da gamba, can do to culture. In this case, it functionally obliterated a key link, depriving many generations all knowledge of their real heritage and contributions. And if I could add a few more items to the list of lute player laurels and legacies, guitar heritage, guitar potential, and the continuity of guitar as a primary source of musicianship training down through the centuries; . . . it was a guitarist, using his fretted, fourths-tuned guitar, and it’s chromatic scale, who developed The Cipher. That same guitarist has just reintroduced the Viola da Gamba to  guitarists (reclaiming  it in fact), and consequently reunited an entire family of musical instruments and players (via 7 string Viola da Gamba as reverse gene pool and largest sample tuning pattern), hunting down the apparently already publicly held suspicions (but little more) that a guitar, a vihuela d’arco of some kind somewhere, might have beget viola da gamba, and finally, being the one who did successfully track down, recognize, assemble, and connect, publicly exhibit and share, the necessary essential key iconography (viols AND vihuela/viola/lute/guitar), in one place and at one time, which  would prove, once and for all, to all comers, that viola da gambas are guitars, thereby reclaiming and returning the whole of that long shared heritage and history to it’s rightful owners, yourselves. . . . The circle is now unbroken . . . developed 11-20-2003 to 12-2-2003 Roger Edward Blumberg I hope you understand that although I've sounded very narrowly focused in the above writing, as if nothing ever existed but the guitar line, it’s really just so that we could take a close look and perhaps reassess what’s been going on, where we came from, and make the argument and case for “another side”. At the very least, I believe that the guitar line now has to be elevated to the top of the list, equal footing and partners, with any other root sources and wombs of our music’s. Whether the other key-most players are  Heart and Soul, Church music, or piano keyboards, or the Major scale, physics, or whatever, then we need a solid new multiplicity of sources and causes, equal trunks of the greater tree, with the guitar line as one of those recognized trunks. The guitar family should, I think, be written back into the history books and in no small way, a large part of  book in fact, and given their due respect and credits. I do personally have a more middle ground perspective regarding the larger picture, but if we’re going to write our history we need to know, establish, and examine what the playing field really was, and what the real and largest influences really were. In other words, I’m just interpreting it as I see it, in light of the connections made apparent by these drawings and more. There’s just a little too much coincidence, a simple elegance, and common sense undeniability to it, which I at least find hard to dismiss easily. And finally, a word of explanation about the tones and attitudes I’ve used and expressed here and elsewhere. This is 2004. It is ridiculous, inexcusable, unforgivable, and an embarrassment upon music’s house, that these little details have somehow escaped the attention of our music educators, and that they have not been passed on to you. Time and again I find myself placed in a position  I do not enjoy, that of having to challenge, bad-mouth, and lambaste the greater music education establishment. Everywhere I look I find what can only be described as ineptitude and misaligned priorities, and it makes my blood boil. It makes me angry because I love music, art, learning, and teaching. I am passionate and can’t sit idly by. Regarding viola da gamba, bowed guitars, in particular; I want modern kids to have some greater sense of cultural identity, to know their history and heritage, the legacy that is theirs, to have a piece of the pie, a piece of Western art and music history that they can call their own, a part they can relate to, something to point back to as them and theirs, continuity, validation, pride. Guitars matter, and they always have. Violins and pianos are not the only pillars of Western art-music and culture (with a capital C) — far from it. I, a guitarist, growing up in the 1960’s, never once heard of a viola da gamba, anywhere, ever. For all intents and purposes, no guitarist knew about viols,  let alone knew that they were bowed guitars. We guitarists, and virtually everyone else raised in the 20th century, honestly believed that bowing is and always had been the sole and exclusive domain of the violin family! Noone ever told us that bowing a guitar, fretted fourths, was not only possible but in fact had been done for centuries, on an instrument called a viol da gamba or vihuela d’aro (aka bowed guitar), and was thus a major foundation of European bowed string musics. I and we were cheated! We were deprived of half our family, and half of our music making capacity and potential, our expressive, creative, and emotive outlets. We had to go without, without one of our most important loves and lovers (for those of us who hold music making and love making to be fundamentally similar in nature). I take it personally. I’m pissed off, and can’t allow this state of affairs to continue unnoticed. There is no excuse for this to have happened. Educators and artists both are encharged to pass on culture, the arts, to ensure continuity. I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that you don’t have to go without (your bowed lover, your other half). That’s the best I can do, and it’s my responsibility to do it. So any tones of discontent and dissatisfaction, or even bitterness, expressed by me, are entirely warranted, justified, and long over due. Someone has been asleep at the wheel and for far too long. You (the powers that be, the greater music education establishment) can never repay nor make up for the music lost, the musicians deprived,  the shear sonic beauty rendered absent, by your negligance, your dereliction of duty.  So a few harsh words from any of us to you is the least of what you’re owed. You’re getting off easy. If I were the “education czar”, or one of the Gods, Godesses, or Muses of the Arts, of Music, heads would roll! So there, now  I’ve  made myself clear ;-)       Below; painting detail: Abraham van den Tempel, 1671, Netherlands, Amsterdam. This chap, David Leeuw, playing his viol, apears to be about 10 years old. Hint Hint.       Below; painting by Frederick Kerseboom, portrait of Sir John Langham, playing his viol, at aged 12, 1683. Hint Hint.             Below: Paolo Veronese, Italian, Wedding (or marriage) feast at Cana, c.1560. This pictute had previousely been one of the most famous 16th century images of a viol, and specifically a guitar-come-viol, the one that inspired many of us to wonder what’s up here, that’s a dam bowed guitar if I ever saw one, and prompted us to go looking for the rest of the story.   Done ! ;-)         The Cipher for Viola da Gamba and Lute This Cipher for Viols and Lute section essentially duplicates the all of the fretboard related material in Core Cipher Components — Group Two (fretboard components for guitar) section, with all drawings being appropriate to the 6 and 7 string viola da gamba  and lute fretboard in their standard (shared) tuning. The text here is also nearly identical to the corresponding guitar version (and for now obvious reasons). I’m under no illusions regarding which tuning guitarists will use in any possible rebirth of the bowed gamba-guitars some day. It would most likely be modern guitar tuning, and the instruments may very well be commonly called Bowed Guitars  (as they originally were, vihuela d’arco). It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the line could be made available again to anyone who might benefit from them and that guitar players in particular might realize a larger suite of tools than those  available to them today. The Gamba/Lute tuned tutorials here can of course be used by anyone who wishes to use them. If guitar players only need to see them once, see the fact of the existence of and the similarity between what used to be and what is today now within their current guitars, and then use modern guitar tuning instead, that’s fine. A huge part of the original functionality of that inseparable team, lute and viol, was the fact that they were tuned the same way and played by the very same persons. They were virtually the same instrument. You could put one down and pick the other up, much the same way you might pick up your acoustic guitar today to work something out and then play it on your electric guitar. So that aspect of tuning parity in the line should be maintained. It only makes sense. The only thing that matters is music. If you can use them again, the gambas, a bowed instrument in fretted fourths, make them yours. Remember, bowing and viols are your birthright. We vihuelists-violists-guitarists-lutenists built them in the first place. 500 years ago we decided to add a bowed instrument to our line, expanding our music making potential, and we did so. No modern has the right to tell you that you must use “old tuning” (4-4-3-4-4 beign 16th century lute and guitar tuning) at this stage in the game. We guitarists are the only surviving members of our family, the rightful he