The Geography of the Cello Fingerboard
Hey composer!
In this blog post, I’ll help you to understand the geography of the cello really well, and it will give you a sense of what kinds of multi-stops, scales, and so on are possible on the instrument.
I did this in equal temperament, but obviously string players are going to intuitively make detailed microtonal decisions to optimize their intonation. And of course, there are different ways that you can divide up the cello into microtones, since it doesn’t have frets, so there are a lot of nuances in terms of the frequency possibilities (i.e. quarter tones, sixth tones, just intonation, etc.).
The fingers of the left hand are numbered from one on the index finger to four on the pinky, and then we use this little funny symbol to refer to the thumb.
Cellists and bassists both have to use the thumb at a certain point, just because in the higher register it's really convenient to have the thumb as an extra finger that you can use to play different kinds of patterns and positions.
The most common default playing position for the cello is called first position. It's basically just a whole step up from the open string, and then you play whole step, half step. You can play three scales with the open strings doing that: C major, G major, and D major. That's what you learn when you would start if you were going to learn to play the cello. This is sort of the default place where a lot of the music that's written for the cello lives.
You can also shift up to higher positions. For example, third position is just a perfect fourth up from the open string and can easily shift from first position to third position:
In this case, I wrote the finger pattern as 1-3-4 (whole step, half step), but it could just as easily be 1-2-4 (half step, whole step) or 1-x2-x4 (whole step, whole step).
Fourth position is also easy to shift to:
It's very comfortable and very typical of cello writing. Don't be afraid to write beyond the first position, you can compose pretty much whatever you want to on the cello, and the performer will find a fingering for it. The main things that you have to think about are chords, because there are certain things that are not possible, and I'll get into that below.
Thumb position, as I mentioned earlier, is also common. It's very common beyond the octave point on the string, because at a certain point you just need the thumb.
Cellists even have like a callus on the part of the thumb that meets the string because they use it so much. Don’t hesitate to write your idea as you would like it to be, then collaborate with the performer to make it possible!
Hope that helps, and feel free to check out the video I made on composing for the cello 👇🏻
Happy composing!
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