The 2d most common scale pattern

In our earlier post, we went over the most common scale pattern — the one-octave scale starting on an open string. Here we’ll look at the second most common pattern.

Starting on 3d finger

The second most common scale pattern starts on the 3d finger. In this pattern, the 1st & 2d fingertips are touching. The other fingers have a finger’s-width space between them — from 0 to 1, and from 2 to 3.

The great thing about getting comfortable with one-octave scale patterns is that the finger relationships work the same for two strings in a row.

Here’s an illustration of the finger pattern for a scale starting on the 3d finger. Be sure to start and end with the dark blue circle. You can fit the whole pattern in if you start on either the G or D string.

If you play this pattern starting on the G string, you will be playing a C scale. If you start on the D string, you’re playing a G scale. If starting on the A string, it’s a D scale, and in the video below, I just take the notes up to the third finger of the E string and back down, since the D on the E string requires the hand to move up the neck from “first position.”

Knowing this pattern allows you to play three different scales without having to think about key signatures or names of notes, an intellectual step that can be helpful when you want to analyze and understand more about the music, but in the heat of the moment when you’re actually playing, this extra worry can easily bog you down.

The reason I consider this the second most common scale pattern is that if you start playing, for example, a G scale starting with the open G string, you will use today’s pattern, starting with the 3d finger, to continue your G scale into the second octave. Any tune in the key of G is likely to use both of these patterns. Same is true of tunes in the key of D.

The arpeggio here, which uses the chord notes (1st, 3d, and 5th notes of the scale) will stick with the odd-numbered fingers — 3, 1, 3 — and the video below helps you practice this. To add the top note of the arpeggio (the dark blue note), you’ll use the low 2d finger as shown in the illustration.

One huge benefit of learning this pattern, starting on the 3d finger, and the previous one, starting on open string, is that you can combine them into a 2-octave scale. When you play a tune in the key of G (one sharp in the key signature), all you need to know is that on the bottom two strings, your 2d and 3d fingertips touch (open-string scale pattern), and on the top two strings, your 1st and 2d fingertips touch (3d finger scale pattern). This reduces intonation to just one big thing to keep in mind — the one-time switcheroo between the middle strings, from keeping the 2d finger high (next to the 3d) on the two bottom strings to keeping the 2d finger low (next to the 1st finger) on the top two strings.

The same switcheroo happens in the key of D, and since lots of tunes in D use the top two strings, you can stay in tune if you remember to switch the 2d finger from high (next to 3d finger) on the A string, to low (next to 1st finger) on the E string.

Next up: the third most common pattern, a scale starting on the 2d finger.

Practice Video for scales and arpeggios starting on 3d finger

This video is #3 out of ten videos in Technique Video Group 4 on fiddle-online.com.