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Double Bass Scale Fingering Sheet

Sam Dingle

Sam Dingle

Aug 16, 2011
6,786
5,561
Nashville TN
#1
Does anyone have a comprehensive scale fingering sheet that can be handed out to students. Looking for at least major and minor scales with acceptable fingerings for each scale. Looking for one completely in bass cleff. Ideally two octaves but one is fine. Can you post a link of if you wanna private message me a pdf that'd be great. Thanks for the help
 
#3
Yes, there are several books with various fingerings. You will find some of the fingerings for several scales can be identical, with similar combinations of fingerings just with a different starting points.
A good book will give you the option of choosing a fingering you like.
 
#9
One thing that I'd find useful would be for "pro" (or better than me, anyway...) bass players to write out their fingering for walking lines. I realise that there's no "correct" fingering for any given set of notes, but I still find it really instructive when I'm watching good players to observe what choices they make in terms of fingering and shifting. The area I struggle with most is the transition in and (even more so) out, of thumb position.

Obviously I'm not expecting anybody to do any work just for me, but if anyone knows if anybody has put this kind of thing together I'd love to take a look.
 
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#11
tinyd said:
One thing that I'd find useful would be for "pro" (or better than me, anyway...) bass players to write out their fingering for walking lines. I realise that there's no "correct" fingering for any given set of notes, but I still find it really instructive when I'm watching good players to observe what choices they make in terms of fingering and shifting. The area I struggle with most is the transition in and (even more so) out, of thumb position.

Obviously I'm not expecting anybody to do any work just for me, but if anyone knows if anybody has put this kind of thing together I'd love to take a look.
Click to expand...
It’s an interesting question. I think one way is to take a particularly difficult passage or transition and try to find at least one (or as many as you can) other fingerings to get the notes you want. I’ve had a couple of occasions where I settled on a fingering for a hard passage or transition only to have teachers say “whoa why not do it this way?” A good rule of thumb (sorry) is if a passage is consistently tricky, see if there’s another way. Sometimes I’ll jump to the D octave on the D string to get myself into thumb position when there’s an easier way to play those notes lower down on the G string. Lizzie Burns and Orin O’Brien have both corrected some of my suboptimal fingering choices in the last 12 months. (I have to pinch myself sometimes to remember the embarrassment of riches that exist in NYC in terms of superstar bass instructors).
 
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#16
I am an OF (Old Fart)...
I don't understand why anyone would hand out a sheet of "....scale fingerings...." to a student without having the important ongoing discussion and explanation of WHY a certain fingering might be optimal, or WHY a certain fingering is sub-optimal - (Regarding Bowings and/or jazz pizzicato phrasings.)
I would encourage a student to take 1 scale, find and subject it to a variety of RH bowings or RH pizz fingerings, and see/hear/feel WHY a specific fingering might be either Genius or Bone-Headed. As a start, Simandl Book 1 has a wonderful exercise in Bb that has a few dozen bowing variations that a student should explore in depth with a teacher.
It's the old "give a wo/man a fish... teach a wo/man to fish..." lesson from Ancient Times.
The music context should determine what fingering would be best suited, NOT recalling all of the many variations that may exist.
IMFO, of course.
Thanks.
 
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#17
Just seeing this now. Sadly no useable answers which is surprising to me. Maybe I’ll make one up and post it while I’m away teaching.

I work at a music camp durring the summer and realized not a single student had a clear way to play their major and minor scales and everything I would find was way too complicated. I need a simple, one or two page sheet showing one way to play these scales two octaves so they can start learning. Lots of these students don’t have full time teachers so giving them any resource would be great that’s easy to understand.

what I mean is say F major, writing it out as 140140240(g string) 241424

obviously in lessons and week long master classes explain how to use them and expand on it, but I can’t find anything that’s easy to print out for them to use and understand. Hope this makes sense and hope some time I’m able to write it all out.
 
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#18
Sam Dingle said:
Sadly no useable answers which is surprising to me.
Click to expand...
Come on! You're a teacher, so you most certainly know how to finger scales. How long would it take to you to write this down on staff or tab, photocopy it, and hand it out to your students?

Plus, as some others have pointed out, it is much more important to teach to students the principles of good fingering than a specific fingering for this or that scale...

Just my 2 cts...
 
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#19
Don Kasper said:
...
I don't understand why anyone would hand out a sheet of "....scale fingerings...." to a student without having the important ongoing discussion and explanation of WHY a certain fingering might be optimal, or WHY a certain fingering is sub-optimal
...
It's the old "give a wo/man a fish... teach a wo/man to fish..." lesson from Ancient Times.
...
Click to expand...
Papageno said:
Come on! You're a teacher, so you most certainly know how to finger scales. How long would it take to you to write this down on staff or tab, photocopy it, and hand it out to your students?

Plus, as some others have pointed out, it is much more important to teach to students the principles of good fingering than a specific fingering for this or that scale...

Just my 2 cts...
Click to expand...

I have to echo all of this. In my experience as a student many years ago, I have (anecdotally) taken and retained the most from teachers/lecturers that have prepared their own lesson materials and notes. Those that took the time to do this also tended to demonstrate a deeper understanding of and passion for the subject; were able to take questions on the fly, answer or discuss to a greater depth and could always substantiate what they were saying with proofs or reduction to first principles. That sticks. Then there were those that 'phoned it in' - more often that not they were the ones that had to "take that one away" or "get back to you on that"; they also tended to be the ones that handed out old photo-copies taken from books and other people's lecture notes (and often failed to "get back to us on that"). Ultimately they instilled little confidence that they actually knew what they were talking about. Not saying one is an absolute indicator of the other, but from the receiving end one can't fail to notice the correlation, however empirical and anecdotal it might be.
 

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