Editing Viol (section)

==Different versions==
[[Image:Violone PeterLely1649DutEng.jpg|thumb|left|[[Violone]] or ''great bass viol''. Painting by Sir [[Peter Lely]], {{circa|1640}}, Dutch-born English Baroque era painter. Note the Italianate shape, square shoulders, and F-holes, apart from its massive size.]]
[[Image:Viols divis Simpson Eng1660.jpg|thumb|upright|Plate from [[Christopher Simpson (musician)|Christopher Simpson]]'s book, ''The Division Violist'', England, 1659–1667 edition.]]

Viols come in seven sizes: "[[pardessus de viole]]" (which is relatively rare, exclusively French and did not exist before the 18th century), treble (''dessus'' in French), alto, tenor (in French ''taille''), bass, great bass, and contrabass (the final two are often called [[violone]], meaning ''large viol''), the smaller one tuned an octave below the tenor (violone in G, sometimes called ''great bass'' or in French ''grande basse'') and the larger one tuned an octave below the bass (violone in D, or the contrabass viol). This latter instrument is not to be confused with the [[double bass]].

Their tuning (see next section) alternates G and D instruments: pardessus in G, treble in D, tenor in G, bass in D (the seven-string bass was a French invention, with an added low A), small violone in G, large violone in D and the alto (between the treble and the tenor). 
[[File:Boston MFA Viola da Gambas.jpg|left|thumb|Different sizes of gambas in the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]]]
The treble has a size similar to a [[viola]] but with a deeper body; the typical bass is about the size of a [[cello]]. The pardessus and the treble were held vertically in the lap. The English made smaller basses known as [[division viol]]s, and the still-smaller [[Lyra viol]]. The [[viola bastarda]] was a similar type of viol used in Italy for a virtuosic style of viol repertoire and performance. German consort basses were larger than the French instruments designed for continuo.

Those instruments were not all equally common. The typical Elizabethan consort of viols was composed of six instruments: two basses, two tenors and two trebles, or one bass, three tenors and two trebles (see [[Chest of viols]]). Thus the bass, tenor and treble were the central members of the family as far as music written specifically for viols is concerned. Besides consort playing the bass could also be used as a solo instrument (there were also smaller basses designed especially for a virtuosic solo role, see above ''division viol'', ''lyra viol'', ''viola bastarda''). And the bass viol could also serve as a continuo bass. The pardessus was a French 18th-century instrument that was introduced to allow ladies to play mostly violin or flute music{{efn|The violin and the flute were not considered appropriate for ladies; no longer, in the case of the violin, as in the 17th century, because of its popular origins and association with people who made a living playing music, but because the physical effort required to hold the violin ''a braccio'' or to play the flute were not considered lady-like}} but eventually acquired its own repertoire. The alto was a relatively rare smaller version of the tenor. The violones were rarely part of the consort of viols but functioned as the bass or contrabass of all kinds of instrumental combinations.