Violin, Cello and Double Bass Scale Fingering
First-position scale fingerings for violin, viola, cello, and double bass: which finger plays each note, on which string, with low and high placements marked.
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About this tool
On bowed strings the same written scale is fingered very differently by instrument: a violinist covers a seventh on one string with four fingers, a cellist covers barely a fourth, and a double bassist uses the Simandl 1-2-4 system with only three fingers per position.
This tool builds a one-octave scale from the lowest comfortable root in first position and draws it on the fingerboard: each dot names the finger, arrows mark low and high placements on violin and viola, and a plus sign marks cello and bass extensions. Open strings are labeled 0.
Small ghost dots show every other scale note reachable in first position, which turns the chart into a fingerboard map: you can see where the scale continues on neighboring strings before you ever shift.
Fingerings follow standard beginner pedagogy — violin and viola first position with four fingers, cello first position with extensions, and Simandl half and first positions on the bass. Everything runs locally in the browser.
Example. Violin D major in first position lists the finger and string for each scale note, including the low and high fingering variants.
Limit. Charts stay in first position for violin, viola, cello and double bass, with no shift into higher positions.