I'm trying to get my shifting from 4th to 1st right, and becoming very frustrated. I move up to 4th alright, most of the time, but when I go back to 1st, I tend to either over or undershoot, so the note is (often horribly!) sharp or flat. Beside the obvious 'practice a lot', is there anything I can do to improve this?

Apart from doing the most horrible thing imaginable - sticking a piece of tape across the fingerboard at 1st position - no there isn't a quick-fix or instant cure.

Practice, practice and more practice I'm afraid. You will, with enough practice, develop muscle memory. This will lead to a noticeable improvement in intonation.

My teacher teaches shifts by letting your finger move up/down the string as you bow and stopping when you get to the right note. It still takes plenty of practice (and makes a horrible noise!), but it allows your body to learn the correct gap for that shift and is good for ear training as well. I use a tuner to help and look at the tuner when I think I have got there.

Rick Mooney's Position Pieces Vols. I & II , publ. Summy-Burchard, provide a systematic guide to the positions and the associated shifting. It is very approachable and is highly recommended by me.

I'll have a look for the book, thanks storini.

It's interesting Suepea, I can do a gliss into position without any trouble - I can hear the moment when I need to stop really easily. But I guess the idea of muscle knowledge is the issue - it just needs building up.

My cello teacher always tells me to "hear" the note in my head before I play it. Easier said than done!! I think the principle is so that it can be very quickly adjusted but also if you "hear" it first, you are more likely to hit it more accurately first time. If it's any consolation, shifts down ARE hard - shifting down to 2nd and 3rd positions are hard too. Lots of practice and listening ... but all worth it in the end!!

Funnily I find the shift to 2nd and 3rd much easier - my cello teacher thinks that's a bit bizarre, since fourth is in his opinion easier to get. I've now got to say I have officially developed a block on the piece that I've been practising shifts to 4th on - The Keel Row. I can feel myself tense up when I try to play it, and generally refer to it as that (insert appropriate expletive) Keel Row. My teacher thinks I need to chill, as I've only been playing for about 6 weeks, and thinks it will come with time, and that I need to feel good about the progress I have made. But I'm finding my inability to get it right really frustrating. It's always just sharp or just flat, and it's driving me nuts!

Oh and then to add to my annoyance, in playing Faure's Libera Me, he's asked me to introduce vibrato, and I now sound like a drunken swan whenever I play something that sounded really lovely when I played it without vibrato a few days ago!

I'm getting so grumpy with myself.

If you are overshooting your target, your shifting motion is too fast. What you want to teach yourself is the old space/time relationship which you link to the sound of the interval involved. A lunging, stab-in-the-dark motion begins as an out-of-control proposition and will ever remain such. One respondant above suggests starting with a glissando, and another suggests getting the pitch "target" set in your mind. They are both on the right track. A shift is a controlled slide, only the actual slide is a small proportion of the total elapsed time.

Choose the notes 1st position E and 4th position A on the D string. Set a metronome at any convenient speed, say 76. Start by making your gliss. last 4 beats, arriving at the target on beat 5 and holding the target note (fermata). Go up to IV pos. and then down to I pos. Lighten your left hand finger to allow a smooth slide. shift with your whole arm. Try not to accelerate the bow at the time of the shift; in the end, a bit of bow slowing actually conceals the gliss.

To speed this up, confine the gliss to beats 3 and 4, arriving on 5 as before. Later on, do all the gliss. on beat 4. Reduce to half beats and/or speed up the metronome. Be sure the pitch is always true. "Visualize" (is the term more appropriately "audioize") the target pitch before the fact. I make students stop their bow and sing or whistle the target pitch before they even begin to shift. In the end the map you are going to rely on is a sound map and nothing else.

At no point allow yourself to shift any faster than you need. You don't want to program any trace of panic into this process.

Shifting is a wonderous feat. It's amazing that we can do it at all. Of course, a zillion players in the past have learned to do it, and so can you.

Good luck. I hope this helps.

Thanks everyone. I think I've got it sorted now. I noticed that when I was doing stuff in '2nd' and '3rd', I wasn't trying quite so hard - rather I was kind of hearing and feeling where I needed to go - like I would on the guitar. My shifts aren't perfect still (and obviously won't be for some time!), but it's taken the edge off a bit, thinking a bit less mechanically about where my hand needs to go, and rather shifting my focus to how the music needs to sound. It's working.

Now, if I could only sort out that vibrato so it doesn't sound quite so wobbly!

Now, if I could only sort out that vibrato so it doesn't sound quite so wobbly!
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Once you get your vibrato going, there are only three controls: ON/OFF, SLOW/FAST, and SHALLOW/DEEP.

If the vibrato stops, start it again. Try to keep it going even when fingers or string change.

Ideal speed for general playing is 3 to 4 times per second.

Depth refers to the amount of pitch from flat to sharp. You want enough depth to tell there is vibrato but not enough to cause seasickness.

Good luck.

Gabe Villasurda