The Electric Viola da Gamba

audio ‘Ruby’s Dawn’

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Viola da Gamba 2013

Categories

Posts in category Introductions

Why Ruby?



The name Ruby Gamba is a tribute to the Jagger/Richards song Ruby Tuesday. Essentially about the freedom of idea, of Being. Pursuing your dreams or else life isn’t worth living. To me the she is the viol, the sound and mystery of the viol that never ceases to deeply move me. Songwriters: JAGGER, MICK / RICHARDS, KEITH [...]

~ read more ~

HighScore, Italy. Centre for new music



The highSCORE New Music Center is dedicated to promoting contemporary music by featuring a range of events throughout the year. It was created with the mission to stimulate, train, and promote the excellence in the field of musical composition, and offer composers a context within which to further their professional preparation, propose their work to the wider [...]

~ read more ~

Exapno, music community in NY, US. Good idea? Start it up in your own country!



Exapno is a new music community center.  What does that mean?  It’s a place where musicians come to compose, rehearse and perform for the monthly price of a gym membership.  In a city where renting rehearsal space can be prohibitively expensive and isolating, Exapno creates a cheaper, more inviting option.  Though composing is generally seen [...]

~ read more ~

Ruby Gamba

Bowing

The secret of bowing is the terrible expression of a continuous pluck, an extended moment that subconsciously reminds us of the raptorial ripping of soul tissue. It hurts, and thus urges us to heal the moment by imagining the bow and the string to be a vocal tract. The bowing aimes for the voice that breaks the nocturnal silence into a soothing wail. Our ears sharpen and we awaken to our noblest feelings: lonesome but not abandoned, together but uprooted, scratched but pristine.

Comments by players

Jay Elfenbein: endless sonic possibilities |
Tony Overwater: it is magic |
Victor Penniman: Awesome tool, man |
Jean-Baptiste Collinet: My Heavy Metal Axe |
Fahmi Alqhai: My tool for Hendrix and Van-Halen |
Wieland Kuijken: it's not for me, but it will
probably mark the future of viol playing...

Viol Players on the move

Many young viol players are on the move, from viol playing as it was understood for decades to viol playing as modern society requires... that is: players are adapting to new emerging markets, and new musical styles. Viol players are great adapters for their instrument asks them to impersonate styles, attitudes, techniques and conceptualizations from many different cultural movements, from now and from the past. Our instrument enhances the possibilities of young players greatly, so choosing the Ruby Gamba may be decisive in the development of modern professionalism. See you at the exhibitions in Asfeld, France, Utrecht, Netherlands, Meylan, France, Greenwich UK and Boston (2013)