Having played a gamba in college, despite its obvious limitations due to the frets, you could play wicked multi string chords not possible on a cello. Sadly due

Having played a gamba in college, despite its obvious limitations due to the frets, you could play wicked multi string chords not possible on a cello. Sadly due to the gut strings it did not like air conditioning. Because it had frets I as a guitar/bass player could actually learn to play it reasonably well.