My teacher is starting to talk about this shifting business and I'm getting kind of nervous. I seem to have enough on playing in first position, but she says that I'll start to learn different positions soon. Does shifting make it difficult to keep track of where the notes are on the strings, or is it not that bad? Am I panicking for no reason?

Learning strings is fiendishly difficult compared to the flute and piano! *lol*

I haven't go to that bit either yet, but I have to agree with the above, esp. if you delete from 'compared' to the end!!!!

It's like any new skill really - it will seem insurmountable at first, but eventually you'll wonder why you found it such a big deal.

The thing to remember is that there's two parts to shifting : The actual movement of the hand (the shift) and then the position (making sure that you play in tune in the new position) - you can expect your tuning to be ropey in the new position for a while and you'll probably overshoot the shifts to begin with, but if you approach it from a lift, glide and drop perspective, you'll find it ok.

Check out violinmasterclass.com or Todd Ehle's vids on youtube for some great discriptions of shifting technique.

Allan

I started a few months ago.

Yes the first few times you do it it's terrible and it seems like everything's changed and the notes are all different etc.etc.

But.... then suddenly, after a few weeks for me, it's ok again and you get the hang of it. Will probably learn third position first.

Don't worry about it, just think of it as the next step and it will also mean that there are more (higher) notes you can play and hence more music!

It's great once you get the hang of it because it feels more like you're a real stirngs player

It's not as scary as you might think, but on the physical aspect of shifting, an absolute 'must' is to have a relaxed hand. Tension will not only impair the actual shifting, it won't help your intonation either.

Thank you all. These replies were very encouraging, both in terms of the future prospect of higher position playing and also that I often find new pieces so hard I feel like giving up in exasperation (and I'm only preparing Grade 1 material!), but it is true that it gets easier. Sometimes you just need telling again, right?

I've been doing sort of shifting for 4th finger harmonics, then back to 1st position for notes, so I'm beginning to build up to learning 3rd position, I think. Slowly, slowly, learnee play viola!!

It's not too bad. One thing I would encourage you to do is to learn to play in position before shifting around. Find a very easy piece that you know how to play in first position and play everything in 3rd position. That way you will familiarize yourself with your new fingerings, the hardest for me was to remember which finger to go down on what string when I'm out of my comfort zone (first position!!)

Also, do shifting exercise religiously, where you slide your first finger from first position to 3rd, back and forth, listen carefully for your destination note.

Good luck!!

I have found it helpful to recognise the same finger patterns to make a scale in 1st position are in 3rd position even if now they may be on different strings.

I also find remembering that effectively strings get 'shifted to the right' useful. e.g. open string D in third position becomes a G, A string becomes a D ... and so if the violin had a fifth string it would be C!!

It's not difficult. You practice more then you will get it.
However, remember that don't use too much power to slide the hand up. Slide up smoothly.
I play viola but I just wondered why the viola keeps shaking.. (though just a little) After a period of time, I found that I have been pressing too hard on the string.. I am improving

"Eventually you make friends with the fingerboard."

This encouraging aphorism from my 'cello teacher turned out to be true for me eventually; more so on bass than on 'cello. She meant that if you know where the notes are on the string, you can play them right with any finger. She never bothered to name positions for me; she just said, "Put your first finger there for that phrase." Upper string teaching is more strongly codified, so every violin teacher "knows" the only possible way to teach the instrument. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. The orthodox way makes beginning students secure in the odd positions fairly early, but less confident in the even ones, and unlikely to notice that a particular passage becomes much easier if you use one. I see my technically adept fellow bass players leaping up and down a string with confidence, while I have worked out a fingering with an extension or two that allows me to cross strings securely for the same intervals.

I have almost mastered third position now but sometimes go a bit too high or not high enough. The hand movement always feels bigger than the finger movement. I am trying to get my head around 2nd position now which I am finding more difficult. Apparently there's a 1/2 position too, which my teacher has mentioned! Sometimes when I am playing in one of my little amateur orchestras and the second violin part goes very high I just aim for where I think it is and on hearing the lady next to me who knows what she's doing I sometimes get it right! I am trying to creep a little vibrato in now and again now although my teacher hasn't really done much on it with me. She likes arm vibrato which is a bit more difficult to do than wrist vibrato.

How do you remember where each note is? I'm just starting to get used to the whereabouts of each note in first position? Isn't it very confusing to suddenly have everything moved? Oh, dear, I hope I manage. How many positions do you have to learn in order to play reasonably well? I want to join the amateur orchestra at some point, but how will I know when I'm ready?

Its like saying how do you remember where open strings are, or where notes in 1st position are. They're instroduced slowly so that you remember. It may seem really hard right now but persevere and it does get easier
Having said that, in the (much) higher positions, I don't remember where the notes are, I work out where I'm starting and then play by interval.

x

Thank you for all these replies I shall try to take things slowly and not worry.

Me too, over some of the fingerboard, but every player of 'cello or bass needs to know the notes at the "shoulder" position, i.e. where the fingerboard passes onto the sound box; do upper string players use this information?

It helps if you can hear the pitch internally, so you know if you get it wrong.

Absolutely. On the violin I know that 4th position is approximately where my thumb comes into contact with the base of the neck. Across the strings that corresponds to D - A - E and B.

Reference points like that are useful and you eventually learn to feel your way around things, colloquially called muscle memory. Of course, the muscles do not remember in the true sense of the word, but the brain relates a certain type (or amount) of movement to particular notes on the fingerboard. Although having said that, bear in mind strings can go out of tune while playing, so your ears still need to be the first line of guidance to the hand.

Why?

As a guide to the notes around it, especially those in the higher positions. I played in a run-through of the Franck Symphony yesterday and (re-)discovered that it requires basses to leap to a passage that starts on the note notated as an octave above middle C. This has to be fingered on the G string, a perfect 11th above the open note, and the shoulder note F, being much more familiar, is the best landmark for the position. Unfortunately, the C is the same distance above the F as the C below it is above Ab - just too big a stretch for me to finger both - so I just have to go for it and listen. We perform this on 28 March, so this passage(and some similar ones on other high notes) will get a lot of practice before then.

Kenm has provided the basis for this, but I will add that large leaps of notes on the fingerboard of bowed string instruments does require a more than just luck, if you are to be anywhere near hitting the right note.

As I said in my post, learning to feel where the notes are is essential and the hand eventually gets to know how it should feel when playing a particular note. In fact, it is this effect, learnt and built on over time, that allows you to play in tune.

It's a very similar sensation to knowing just how much air and support is required to achieve a particular note on a wind instrument and to play it in tune.

Thanks Ken and Amanda. That makes sense.

My daughter is taking a cello exam in April and her "imposed" piece shifts all over the place all the time. Last year she was using Position Pieces to learn the different positions one at a time and I found all the names very confusing after the violin (if you don't know the book, it has things like "upper second," "lower second" "extended second." Before her exam piece she had only played pieces which had first position plus one other position and when she she started her exam piece she found it very hard. She kept wanting to know what position it was in before she would attempt to play the note. In the end I told her to forget the names and just think about the note and what she has found works for her at the moment is to think about what finger is playing where the 4th finger would be in 1st position (ie D on the A string) and work the note out from there.

Slightly off topic but what has surprised me is how much her intonation has improved since she has stopped playing in a fixed position. Until she started this piece her intonation was very hit and miss (often more miss than hit in fact) and I thought this piece would be much too hard for her. Whether it's because she's having to think and listen instead of just automatically putting a finger done, I don't know but the difference is amazing.

I find it very difficult to just know where the notes are on the finger board without knowing what position I'm in. Granted, I'm a beginner, only been playing for a year-ish. I'm relatively comfortable up to 3rd position and 5th (only on E string)

When I'm playing broken third scales, I'll go up to , i don't know, 7th or 8th position, and I'm just playing by ear (interval), I have absolutely NO clue what note I'm playing. I think my teacher discovered that and now, once in a while she'll stop me and ask me what note I'm playing and I'll just stick my tongue out and name a random note hoping it's right.

I'm with Amanda and Ken (and also Kerioboe, in a round about way). I learned the positions to begin with, but now have very little idea what position I'm in most of the time - I just know what sounds I want to come out of the instrument and my fingers go there.

If I think about it, I know when I'm in third and fifth, but other than that (and most of the time when I'm not thinking), I just know what note I want to play and go for it. This probably leads to some fingering choices that would make a classical violinist weep - but then I'm a great big rotten fiddler, so that's ok!

Nothing's moved. All the notes you already know are still available, right where they've always been. You're just adding a few new notes (and some new places to play old ones).

It may be a bit harder to picture on an unfretted instrument but, if you look at a guitar, each combination of a fret and a string gives you a particular note. Some notes can be found on several different strings, some on only one. But each intersection of fret and string has a label you can attach to it, which doesn't change (unless you start using alternative tunings and stuff like that).
So all you need to do is get used to what note you get from each intersection, which then lets you work backwards and identify all the possible places you can form a given note. Which alternative you pick and which finger you use to do that with will vary depending on what other notes you're playing (and have just played and are about to play).

Same applies to bowed strings, except you can't see the grid because it doesn't have frets. But point x on string y gives note z. If you think of them that way rather than associating notes with particular fingers, it's easier.

This is what Ken's referring to.
If you know where the notes are on the strings, you can play them whichever way is most convenient - just stop the string at the right place for the note you want.

I'm only just starting to think about violin positions as such, though I've been scooting up the fingerboard for a while now. I have a pretty good idea of where the note I want is, so I find it by landing a finger where I think it should be and let my ears guide any necessary adjustments.
The first time I played a 3 octave scale it involved an untidy series of random shifts up the E string as I ran out of notes within reach and leaped for the next. I couldn't have told you which positions I used, but I found the notes I wanted. It's getting a lot neater now, as I've been copying what my desk partner does and shifting when (and where) he shifts.

As long as you don't get into the habit of thinking that, for example, D is "A string, 3rd finger", I don't think you'll find it at all confusing. If you think of D as being the 5th "fret" on the A string, it shouldn't make any different whether you play it with 3rd finger or 1st finger - it's still the same note, in the same place. It's just that playing it with the 1st finger makes it easier to reach the next few notes up the string.

It's like standing on a chair to reach something on a high shelf. The seat of the chair is still the same height off the ground that it always was, but you've now got your feet on it instead of your backside.

When I have difficulty with a passage, I look for parts of it that must be played in a particular way (e.g. the highest note often, though not invariably, goes conveniently only on the G string of a bass) and then look on either side of it for hand positions in which I can play several notes and can move or leave the chosen passage easily. For example, the phrases in the Franck symphony preceding the difficult jumps can be played near the shoulder on the A and E strings, so that the hand moves less because the leap is across the strings. Surprisingly, my bass has a strong and mellow sound in the higher positions on the E string, despite this being the thickest; in forte and fortissimo, I prefer these positions to the same notes on the higher strings.

Don't worry about it - it is of course hard at first, but it'll come. Fifth position is easy as your fingers are in the same position as first. Third (which is probably the first new position you'll learn) is a little confusing at the very beginning, but you will get used to it soon enough. I always found second and fourth the hardest, as I found them counter intuitive: suddenly notes which were played with even fingers are played with odd fingers and vice versa, but even these become fine with practise!

Eventually it all becomes quite natural, and as people have said often you stop even thinking about what position you're in, and just automatically shift to the note! The hardest is when you're playing in about seventh position on the left hand string (not sure what this is on the viola!), unless you have really big hands of course!