#i found out about the viola saga the other day and it's been stuck in my head i've been going nuts

[loverboybrightsideghost]

you may not have heard of the viola, but have you heard of joe hisaishi? i bet you have! well, guess who just wrote an AWESOME piece for the viola!!

both of these videos are cutoff before the end of the piece, but it's available on spotify and wherever you listen to music :) youtube also has the full recordings, but not with the video.

little more explanation on the viola under the cut :)

if you didn't know, the viola is a four-stringed instrument. it has a lower range than the violin and it has the same strings as the cello (but an octave up). those strings are C, G, D, and A, so the strings are tuned in fifths.

fun fact, the opening of movement 1 of viola saga plays a lot on those open* strings, clearly hisaishi's way of establishing the viola-y nature of the piece. the viola is the only instrument that can play those notes in that range, so unless it was transposed, only a viola could play it! as a violist i really do feel the love for my instrument coming across in this piece :)

*playing "open" strings is when you play the strings as they are, without putting any fingers down on any string to change the pitch

sadly, many people have never heard of the viola and just confuse it for the violin, when really it is its own instrument with its own beautiful role in the orchestra and honestly some pretty sick solo pieces.

the one on top is a violin and the one on the bottom is a viola. as you can see, the size difference is pretty big. every time i pick up my friend's violin, it feels so small in comparison that half the time i feel like i'm going to accidentally crush it with my neck.

this is my baby <333 hope you enjoyed learning about the beautiful awesome badass viola if you did in fact read this far lol