Churches and abbeys formed choirs drawn from schools and religious orders. Most towns employed a piper, known as a "wait," to accompany the mayor about his business and lend a musical flavor to town festivities. The nobility hired small groups of about six musicians, known as "consorts." A typical consort combined string and wind instruments along with percussion supplied by a kettledrum.
During the Elizabethan period one of the most important instruments was the viol, or viola de gamba, an instrument played upright between the knees in the manner of a cello, and with a mournful, cello-like tone. Violins imported from Italy gained in popularity. Players of string instruments used bows that were curved in the manner of hunting bows; they would change the tension in the bow by gripping the horsehair with their fingers. Another important instrument was the lute, whose origins date back to Mesopotamia. Despite a bulbous body that made it difficult to hold in place, it was commonly used as a solo instrument in small, intimate recitals.
A key wind instrument during this period was the shawm. Brought to Europe from Asia by the Crusaders in the 12th century, shawms were piercingly loud woodwind instruments employed in outdoor performances. They came in several sizes, from treble to bass. This period also saw the use of horns, including early versions of the trombone and cornet.
A great deal of music during this period was written for sacred occasions such as church liturgies. Important figures in this repertoire were Thomas Tallis and William Byrde, who employed unaccompanied voices singing polyphonically, i.e., playing against each other in a tapestry of sound. At the same time there was a growth in the writing and preserving of secular music, much of which had been improvised and forgotten in earlier reigns. This took the form of madrigals -- often love poems sung by several voices -- and of solo lute music, which reached its zenith with the composer John Dowland under Elizabeth's successor, James I.