Appendix B - Medieval Fiddle Tuning and Implications for Narrative Performance

Summary

Johannes Tinctoris, probably writing in Naples around 1487, describes two ways of tuning the ‘viola’ and explains how the instrument can be played:

… sive tres ei sint chorde simplices ut in pluribus: per geminam diapentem: sive quinque (ut in aliquibus) sic et per unisonos temperate: inequaliter. Hoc est tumide sunt extente: ut arculus (quom chorda ejus pilis equinis confecta: sit recta) unam tangens: juxta libitum sonitoris: alias relinquat inconcussas.

(… it has either (1) three simple strings tuned to a pair of fifths, which is the most usual, or (2) five strings tuned unevenly in fifths and unisons. These are stretched in a protuberant manner so that the bow (which is strung with horse-hair) can touch any one string the player wills, leaving the others untouched.)

The first of these approaches, the most common in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century, is precisely the modern violin or viola tuning in fifths, but with three instead of four strings. The ‘swollen’ (‘tumide’) arrangement of the strings, probably achieved with an arched bridge, is essential in allowing the player to isolate each string, sounding one string at a time without touching the others.

The second accordatura is less common in Italy this late, and the phrasing is open to several interpretations. Some form of concordant tuning is implied, a structure which would allow the player to sound the five strings or a group of these strings simultaneously.