viola di bordone

Music : An instrument of the violin kind, strung with six or seven catgut strings, C, B, G, D, A, E, C. Beneath the gut were metal strings varying in number from sixteen to as many as forty-four, arranged in a diatonic order. The sympathetic strings were The instrument is now obsolete. It was also called occasionally plucked with the left hand in playing, viola di fagatto , viola bastard a , and barytone. viola-pomposa, s . Music : A species of viol da gamba , invented by John Sebastian Bach. It had five strings; the four lower strings were tuned in fifths, and the fifth string was tuned to E, by means of which greater facility in the execution of extended pa ages was po ible.