The Whole Horn
Both bars are written pitch, on one scale. The upper bar fades rather than ending: the bottom of this instrument is exact, the top is not fixed at all.
The double bass is written in bass clef. Its range has an exact bottom and an open top: the lowest note is E2, which is the lowest open string and therefore a property of the tuning rather than of the player. Above it the compass simply continues — there is no note at which the instrument stops.
That is why range figures for bowed strings disagree so often. Two references quoting different tops are usually not contradicting each other; they are describing orchestral writing and solo writing, which genuinely differ.
The double bass is a C instrument: it sounds an octave lower. Every note in the written range moves by that same interval, so the sounding range is the written range shifted whole — concert E1 to G3. Nothing is compressed or stretched; a range is transposed exactly the way a single note is.
This is the figure that matters when a composer is checking whether a line fits, or a director is working out why the double bass cannot play the part in front of it. The written range answers “can I read this”; the sounding range answers “will this be the pitch I wanted”.
| Note | Written | Sounds |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest scored note | E2 | E1 |
| Lowest learner-comfortable note | E2 | E1 |
| Highest learner-comfortable note | G4 | G3 |
With no fixed top there is no scored span to measure a player against, so the useful figure is the other one: where a developing player is actually secure. The Whole Horn treats E2 to G4 as the learner-comfortable written compass of the double bass, sounding concert E1 to G3.
That is a range, not a fence. It is where a developing player is secure enough that the note is not the hard part — not a boundary the instrument enforces and not a limit anyone should be told they have. Both ends move outward with practice, at different rates, and they move for different reasons at the top than at the bottom. A student who cannot reach G4 today is not outside the range; they are on their way to it.
There is no single highest note to give. This page publishes the exact bottom and declines to publish a top, because the top is not a property of the double bass — it is a property of the passage and the player.
The interesting variable on the double bass is the bottom, not the top. Written E2 is the lowest open string on a standard four-string instrument, but orchestral parts regularly go below it — which is why many basses carry a C extension on the E string, and why five-string instruments with a low B exist. A part written below E2 is asking for a particular instrument. Upward there is no fixed limit, as on any bowed string.
The lowest note — E2 — comes from the double bass's own tuning. Alone among the bowed strings it is tuned in fourths, to E1, A1, D2 and G2 sounding — and it is written an octave higher than it sounds, so the lowest open string appears on the page as E2. Wikipedia's article states both facts: the bass is “tuned in fourths … rather than fifths” and is “typically notated one octave higher than tuned to avoid excessive ledger lines below the staff.”
No highest note is published here. A bowed string has no upper stop, and the figures different orchestration references give for the top disagree because they are describing different things — orchestral section writing, solo writing, or the physical limit of the fingerboard. Rather than pick one and present it as the range, this page gives the exact bottom and says plainly that the top is not fixed.
The learner-comfortable range — written E2 to G4 — is The Whole Horn's own instrument table, the one the app itself reads. Its header states the contract: lo/hi = WRITTEN MIDI, learner-comfortable.
The sounding range is derived here from the written figures by interval, not stored — a stored second copy is a copy that can disagree with the first.
The double bass's lowest note is E2, fixed exactly by its tuning — it is the lowest open string, sounding concert E1. There is no fixed highest note, because a bowed string has no upper stop. The Whole Horn treats E2 to G4 written as the learner-comfortable compass, sounding concert E1 to G3.
There is no single highest note for the double bass. It is a bowed string: the top depends on how far up the fingerboard the player goes, and harmonics extend it further again, so published figures disagree. This page does not give a ceiling it cannot source. The Whole Horn treats G4 as the highest learner-comfortable written note.
The lowest note is E2 written, sounding concert E1, and unlike the top it is exact: it is the lowest open string, so the only way below it is to retune the string.
The Whole Horn's learner-comfortable written range for the double bass is E2 to G4, sounding concert E1 to G3. That is where a developing player is secure, not a fence — the ends move outward with practice, and they move at different rates for different players.
No. The double bass sounds an octave lower, so what is written and what sounds differ by that interval — its lowest note is written E2 and sounds E1.
There is no fixed answer, because the double bass has no fixed top note. From its lowest note, E2, the compass runs as high as the player takes it. The Whole Horn's learner-comfortable span is E2 to G4.
The Whole Horn plays all twelve major scales in the double bass's own written pitch and bass clef, so what you read is what you play.
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