Fingerboard Geography

It’s quite fascinating how many students play without knowing much about the geography of their fingerboard. Lack of this knowledge causes students to make note errors and can often lead to frustration.

The analogy I provide to my students is for them to imagine that they are going on a trip to an unfamiliar location. I ask them, “How will you get there?” Most of them say “Google Maps!” Then I ask them, “Would you go on a trip without some sort of directions or a map to follow? No? This is why we need to understand the geography of our fingerboard!”

First, students need to theoretically understand the musical alphabet and be able to identify half steps and whole steps. I tell them that any two sequential letters are a whole step, except B to C and E to F. These are the natural half steps. We also go through to remind students the role of the accidentals (sharps, flats, and natural signs). I pay special attention to those intervals that include the natural half steps. One example that confuses students is B-flat to C natural, that is a whole step. I use a keyboard example and/or written out letter names on my white board. Then I have students spell and write out the letter names of a one-octave C chromatic scale. Then we again identify, discuss and play half steps and whole steps.

Some of the resources I use are worksheets that I’ve made to help students understand the notes they should be playing in different keys. For violin and viola, this includes Bornoff finger patterns and for cello and double bass, it includes some shifting options.

Download the worksheets below and feel free to copy and distribute to your students. Understanding the theory behind whole steps, half steps and chromatics, along with a better understanding of fingerboard geography will give students a better understanding of how things work and may help them to play the correct notes when in a particular key. I usually distribute one page at a time or create double-sided worksheets.

After students have this theoretical understanding, we play finger patterns and other note patterns together by rote as part of our daily warm-up and also apply this understanding to our rehearsal literature.

Please also reference my post about color-coded finger patterns for illustrations that may help your violin and viola players.