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.
Result
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.