After sharing in my previous post that I had recently come to understand the position naming system on the cello, I was surprised at the number of comments. I learned that there are several recent threads on the topic of the cello positions, and a very interesting disagreement among cellists. To summarize the state of the disagreement:

Most broadly, there are two camps:

In the first camp, there is a difference of opinion regarding which position naming system to use. Some advocate the Suzuki / Mooney system with “lower” and “upper” nomenclature. Others advocate Robert Jesselson’s system which uses “half” positions, and I’d say is better than the Suzuki / Mooney system. Still others (like myself) advocate something like Janos Starker’s chromatic system, which I shared in Sensible Position Naming System for Cello.

Most interestingly though, there is a second camp of cellists who suggest that the position names in any form are harmful, as they distract from an understanding of the note locations and relationships across the fingerboard.

I believe cellists in both camps would agree that the long-term goal is an understanding of the “note matrix” across the cello fingerboard.

So, for those cellists in the second camp, how should a cello learner get there most efficiently? What’s the best way to build a confident “mental map” of the notes on the cello fingerboard?

I think we’d all agree that a first step is to understand that the notes go ABCDEFG, and that since the cello is tuned in fifths, B is always across from E, and so forth. But this isn’t enough to get us there, is it?