Mid Life Cello

I enjoy playing hymns on the cello. They’re usually pretty simple melodies with pretty simple rhythm, but they mean a lot to me and it’s relaxing to play with feeling these songs that I know. Sometimes, I just open a hymnal and leaf through it and play whatever I remember. I’m still not very quick playing from the treble clef – where the hymn melodies are – but if I remember the tune I don’t need to read the music.

I made these fingering cards to help with playing by ear. So many hymns and folk songs are in the keys of C or G or D that I get used to the fingering in those keys and I have trouble picking out a tune that’s in some other key. The fingering cards make it a lot easier. On the 1/8 cello with it’s easier fingering, and with the help of the fingering card, I can learn a tune in 5 flats in nothing flat.

Most string fingering charts show all the notes on the fingerboard, so they are confusing to me, just like the piano keyboard. It was always hard for me to remember which black keys to use  for a particular song! There is no confusion with these cards. Just pick the card  for the key the song is in and you know which notes to try and where they are. An occasional accidental isn’t a big problem. The cards help me learn to associate note names with fingerboard locations, which is not really necessary in playing, but it helps a lot when I play with someone else and we have to talk about the notes.

The fingering diagrams are upside down relative to standard fingering charts I’ve seen, because that’s the way the fingerboard looks to the cellist. The gray bars correspond to the reference locations I still have marked with bits of tape at the side of my fingerboard.

If you think you might find these useful, you can download the XLS and PDF files.