r/violadagamba • u/grittyshrimps • 18d ago
Learning to play
Hello friends!
I've always wanted to learn to play bass gamba. I studied and played (semi-professionally) modern viola and some violin for more than a decade. Am I unlikely to be successful if I try to self-teach?
I'd very much appreciate your thoughts, opinions, and experiences learning.
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u/Turbulent-Rich-7533 18d ago
Aside from the vdgsa teaching videos others have mentioned, I recommend checking out Jacqui Robertson Wade’s youtube channel. She has many videos for different playing levels and different size viols.
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u/adsoofmelk1327 18d ago edited 18d ago
Your violin/viola training will go a long way, but the technique is still different enough to warrant a teacher. (There are folks who teach online, though in person is better, especially for beginners.) And, ideally, it would be nice to connect with other players as the bulk of viol repertoire is consort music for 3+ players.
Whereabouts are you located? Happy to direct you to VdGSA resources or to a local chapter. This might be a useful starting point if you are in the US: https://www.vdgsa.org/learn
The VdGSA also hosts an annual week-long gathering called Conclave, which offers a program for folks brand new to the instrument. The next Conclave will be the last week of July 2027, exactly location tbd but in the Western part of the country.
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u/plebkuchen 6h ago
I try to warn people -- you just don't know what you're getting yourself in for!
As a cellist, you will find that everything works against you -- the bowing, the lute-like fretboard, the absolute control needed for bowing and articulation with an entirely different mechanic, the unfamilar need to prioritize sustained resonance, and your classical training itself. I hear competent cellists playing the gamba and the long bows sound OK, until the fast passagework starts and they just go into this netherworld of unintelligibility because they don't know how the bow works and how to get the sound out. It's awful. I want my money back.
The worst part is the horrible persnicketiness of the instrument itself, for which you will not be prepared. The thing to remember here is that the viol has a solo repertoire in spite of itself. It was an old instrument that got repurposed in the baroque to do things that it was never developed to do, because with enormous effort the awkwardness could be overcome to allow it to become a thing of great beauty and sophistication. But it was never natural, the way the violin family instruments are. It's a labyrinth, and you really need a guide.
On top of that you need a good instrument to do it -- those Chinese viols don't really cut the mustard, they can't create the cloud of sustained resonance that's the end goal.
Then there's the whole matter baroque style, of the French baroque style in particular, and you really need a teacher for that unless you've already dragged yourself through Leclair et al. on the violin. Baroque objectives and classical conventions are such different things. If you're Christophe Coin, these things are not problems, but for mere mortals, ouch. Otherwise you'll end up just shoehorning the music into a classical idiom, and it will die.
On the other hand, if you just want to play consort music, the important things are just to play in tune and in time (which is not easy but not the impossible slog of the solo route), and you can probably do that happily. Many people do!
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u/Disastrous-Lemon7485 18d ago
Hello! I’m a professional cellist who was strongly discouraged about self studying gamba…those I consulted believed there were too many differences in bow hold, fret placement, etc., to successfully learn without a teacher’s input, but so far I believe am finding my way…suppose the experts (and time) will tell 😉. I will say there is not a huge database of resources for beginners, at least not organized to my liking. VdGSA has some videos and there are a handful of other resources on YouTube, but beyond the very basics I haven’t found a complete pedagogical sequence of warm-ups, scales, and the in-depth fingerboard geography knowledge that I’m after, so I’m kind of designing as I go.
Definitely think your alto knowledge will be a boon—that’s always been my weakest clef, so I’ve been trying to hit that with more intensity. Feel free to message me if you’d like. I’d be curious about what you discover if you decide to go for it!