Viola

Suggested

Range

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Suggested

Ranges

General Information

The violas bridge the gap between the rich, mellow tones of the cellos, and the sweet, soaring tones of the violins. Its lower notes sound similar to cellos and its higher notes, to violins. Typically, there are twelve violas in the orchestra's viola section. They can perform all the techniques common to every orchestral stringed instrument, such as pizzicatos, tremolos and trills. For a more complete discussion of these techniques, refer to the Strings-General chapter.

Tuning

The viola has four strings, tuned a perfect 5th apart. Its lowest sounding string is the C, one octave below Middle C. The next string above that is the G string. Following that is the D string and above that is the A string:

Notation

Viola parts are usually written in the Alto clef.

Range

The viola's lowest note is C3 (one octave below Middle C). Its highest note varies, depending upon the player, but a safe top note would be E6 (two octaves plus a Major 3rd above Middle C).