Finding Your Way Around the Cello Fingerboard

Some students think they have to memorize hundreds of individual and isolated points on the fingerboard where the notes are to be played by the fingers. This is not only a monumental task even too great for those with IQs of 200, it doesn't reflect how the brain learns or stores information.

The way the mind stores new information is by relating it to other knowledge already learned. The information stored in our brain is like a huge web of interconnecting ideas. The key to conceptualizing the notes on the fingerboard is to stop thinking of individual notes and begin to relate the location of any given note to the other notes surrounding it. One way we do this is by thinking in positions, note groups, and how positions relate to one another. 

Since we are on the topic of fingerboard 'geography', consider for a moment how you conceptualize the location of another city like Boston (I love Boston!). Is your brain like a GPS system that pinpoints the exact location of the center of downtown? I highly doubt it. Rather, you imagine the location of Boston in relation to other places you know. You might visualize a map in your mind and think of the city as northeast of you. Similarly, where is the gas station in your home town? The farmers market? The concert hall? You conceptualize locations in everyday life in an interconnected way. Locations in your town or city are understood in relation to each other. This is the way to proceed on the fingerboard as well.

Here are a few things to keep in mind. We need to,

Remember to conceptualize and feel - this is key.

Does is sound daunting?  No doubt it is a big project, which is exactly why there are so many excellent resources to help you with this. There are position pieces, etudes, position exercises, position charts, and so on. 

An ultra marathon begins with the first step. Think how good this will be for your mind!

While working on positions, keep in mind that the notes on the cello are organized in patterns. This is incredibly good news because the brain loves patterns. Keep in mind that once you know first through fourth positions, you have enough information to piece together the rest of the fingerboard. And even if you only have first position under your belt, you can still piece together many of the other positions. Maybe that will help the task seem less daunting.

Here are some examples of patterns...

Assuming traditional tuning, an A on the cello - whether fingered, an open string, or a harmonic - is always directly across from and above a D. D is always across from and above a G, and G is always across from and above a C. 

Similarly, a C is always directly across from an F, a B from an E, and an A-flat from a D-flat.  

These are always the case. There are no exceptions. You don't need to recalculate different relations between the notes for every position, thank goodness!   

More examples - assuming you are in the first four positions, if you have a 1st finger on B, 4th finger will always be over a D no matter which position you are in (again, assuming the first four positions). A 2nd finger on B-flat will always result in a 4th finger C.  

To keep this idea going, a 4th finger on D will always result in a 2nd finger on F the string below. A 3rd finger on B will always result in a 1st finger on B two strings up.  Again, there are no exceptions, assuming traditional tuning of the cello strings.

You get the idea. The patterns keep repeating all through the fingerboard to the very end, even past the finger board into outer space.

This also shows the necessity of learning your note names. If you do not know your note names, you simply will miss all the patterns. You have to memorize the notes on the staff to the point of fluency. There is no way out.

Two other finger patterns are also used frequently but less so than the ones above,

Cellists have given different names to these patterns. I prefer to number them in the order I provided above: patterns 1 through 5. But there is no fixed system for naming the patterns and professional cellists rarely, if ever, refer to them this way except in teaching.

Perhaps the best way to learn to identify these different patterns is to start with scales. The major scales only use the first three finger patterns. The harmonic minor scale uses pattern 4 and the chromatic scale (a scale made up of all half steps) uses pattern 5 only.

Since the vast majority of pieces you will likely perform in your lifetime are based on the major/minor scale system, you will typically be playing in one of the five finger patterns listed above. As you are practicing your pieces, try to identify which finger pattern you are using. Sometimes the finger patterns are incomplete but many are not.      

The more patterns you recognize while learning the notes on the cello, the more successful you will be at conceptualizing the fingerboard.

The cello fingerboard is divided into three main areas called the four finger positions (1st through 4th), three finger positions (5th through 7th), and thumb position (anything above 7th position). 

The four finger positions: The cellist typically employs all four fingers equally. The fingers either fall in half steps or the cellist will occasionally stretch an extra half step between fingers.

The three finger positions: Because the notes are closer together, the cellist relies primarily on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd fingers to create all of the finger patterns. To give you an idea, below is how finger patterns 1 through 3 listed above convert to the three finger positions. Notice how 1-3 and 2-4 (whole steps) become stretches

1 2-4 becomes 1 2 x 3

1-3 4 becomes 1 x 2 3

1 x 2-4 (whole step stretch) becomes 1 x 2 x 3

Thumb position (technically 8th position): The added thumb acts like an open string and play the finger patterns above it. 

And here we have another pattern folks!  

Once you complete 1st through 7th positions, you will enter thumb position (technically 8th position). Thumb position starts on the harmonic an octave higher than the open string. The thumb essentially functions as the open string and the notes are exactly the same as first position only spaced closer together. 

Because of this, cellists adopt fingering that are similar to the violin and viola. In fact, this position comprises the same notes and octave as the violin first position except cellists lack an E string and violins do not have a C string. A better comparison would be viola first position, of which the notes are identical in 8th position/thumb position on the cello.

Music theory, boiled down to its most basic level, is theorists finding all the amazing patterns the arose organically in western art music. I strongly advise investing some time to learn basic music theory as it will help tremendously with your reading of music and ability to map out the positions on the cello.

When performing, our first line of defense is how the positions feel in the hand, not our ears. Think of it this way; if we play out of tune, everybody else heard it too - it's too late. Our ear then kicks in, the second line of defense, and we make lighting fast adjustments (hopefully!).

As important as the ear is, the goal is to know these positions so well in the hand by feel that little adjustment is necessary. This is what János Starker called 'tendency intonation'. It goes without saying that this takes years to develop. 

You see, you'll never get board learning the cello!  There is always room to improve!

This paradigm is reversed in the practice room. The first line of defense against which we test the feeling of the positions in our hand is the ear. This, of course, demonstrates how important it is to develop our ability to hear intonation. Without a fine tuned ear, we can't develop our feel of the positions in our hands.  The best way to develop our ear is by tuning notes against other notes (double stops, open strings, drones) and listening to the ring of our cello. Our cellos will speak to us if we only listen to the overtones!

I highly recommend practicing double stops on a regular basis to fine tune the ear and the feeling of the positions in the hand. 

And there we have it!  An brief overview of how the notes of the fingerboard are organized and the relationship between feeling the positions and hearing intonation.  Hopefully this will aid you in your mapping out of the fingerboard.