A# on Upright Bass: the Numbers It Answers To

Everything rooted on A#, 54 qualities in 10 families. A chart will ask for three or four of them by number and leave the rest to the record, but the root is the part the number pins down, so this is the page a reader lands on first.

A# answers to the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and the 7 depending on what got called: it is a plain number in 7 of the twelve keys and needs an accidental in the other 5.

An upright player reads the same root the electric reads and a longer way to get to it — the chart says which number, and the distance between two numbers on this fingerboard is what decides whether it is walked or arrived at. The digit is the same digit the electric got; what differs is the distance the left hand covers to reach it, which is why this reader looks at the NEXT number sooner than anyone.