Viola vs Violin

VIOLA VS VIOLIN

Being a fan of classical music gives me new the knowledge of some instruments. Even though I am not a musician, I am interested in classical instruments and orchestra. One of the instruments that attract me the most is Violin. Before I go deeper to know more about violin, I thought violin is the English translation of Biola in Indonesia and had no clues about viola, but after I watched some YouTube videos and did some web-surfing, I realized that viola and violin are two different instruments. Here are some differences and similarities between those look alike instruments.

If I catch a glimpse of both instruments, they look like twin. I might call viola as violin and other way around. But if we observe the details, their differences on physical appearances are obvious. The wooden materials and accessories such as case, bow, strings, tuner, chin and shoulder rest might deceive us, but if we look further on their size, measurements and clef I can tell they are totally different. Violin is smaller than viola and measured in size of ¾ or 4/4 unlike viola that is measured in inch of 14” or 16”. The clef is the most crucial part of both instruments, if the instruments are played, musicians can tell which one is viola or violin because viola has alto C clef with the strings of CDGA whereas violin has high G strings GDAE. It will be easier to distinguish both instruments.

I have ever wondered if viola and violin has different method or technique to play. When I dig deeper I found that basically they are played the same, but we should pay attention to the bow pressure we should put on them. Since the viola is thicker and bigger, it needs more bow pressure than violin. The sound produced by both instruments is also different. Viola is slightly slower than violin. Regardless the method of both instruments, they share the same ability to play many genres such as folks, classic and jazz.

When I watched the theme of violin videos, I discovered many violinists make fun of violists. I wondered why. I wonder how can viola had lower class than violin even though they comes from one family of string instruments. I discovered that the position taken by each instruments are totally different. They both have sections on orchestra. Usually violin has 2 sections and viola has 1 section. But the not range the played is different. The viola note is four steps lower than the lowest not of the violin. It is the main reasons that viola is used as harmonic type of instruments. Violin on the other hand mostly plays the melody line in orchestral music because it can go up higher up in note range than viola. The facts that violin can cover the high note range qualifies it for a more solo type instrument. The sound produced by viola is kind of thicker and somber while violin has shrill sounds. The reason above makes the hierarchy of both instruments in Orchestra.

I believe both viola and violin has their own uniqueness regardless the stereotype they had. I appreciate both violinist and violist and wish one day become I can become one of them. It can be conclude that viola and violin has differences and similarities on their characteristics. Once we know about that we could easily find out which one is viola or violin.