Viola pomposa Viola pomposa The viola pomposa (also known as the violino pomposo) is a five-stringed instrument developed around 1725. There are no exact dimensions applicable to all instruments used under this name, although in general the pomposa is slightly wider than a standard viola (hence the Italian adjective "pomposa"). It uses four viola strings, tuned conventionally (C-G-D-A), with the addition of a high E string (usually a violin string), giving it a greater range than the orchestral viola; the trade-off comes in a sound which is slightly more resonant than a violin. The viola pomposa is played on the arm and
The Well-Tuned Piano octaves, with nine notes extending the bass of the piano. Young describes the pitches of his tuning as being, "derived from various partials of the overtone series of an inferred low fundamental E-flat reference ten octaves below the lowest E-flat on the Bösendorfer Imperial". Although it might seem that Young is giving a nod to Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier" with his title "The Well-Tuned Piano", musical tuning and musical temperament are two very different things. Temperament actually involves the deliberate mistuning of pitches to make the overall octave more or less usable in various different tones. In "The Well-Tuned Piano",