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Unless you want to stick to fiddle in first, it's worth becoming familiar with 2 and 3. Much of Corelli's Folía is in 2nd, and it's embarrassing if you've done too much work on first and you see an A on the E string and your third finger slams down automatically.
Maybe put some thought into the difference between playing in higher positions on the E string and playing in them on all 4 strings.
One of the points of higher positions is higher notes, so the lower strings don't come into it automatically. I wonder how much time Pierre would bother with 7th position on the G and D strings rather than shift down and use higher strings instead? Playing high on the G string is probably mostly done for the tonality, but it requires a good violin and good technique to get any tonality out of it. You can try the first four bars of Mazas Op.36,n.7. At the moment I'm just working on Sitt 2/3 for my string orchestra.
One of the scale fingering systems requires 5th on the G string for 3 octaves of F#, but that's not going to happen often. F (starting on 2nd finger) is worth working on, if you don't want to start it on the D string.
Finding notes out of the blue on the E string needs special practice - you need to be able to find C and D regularly, then E and F (Eb ain't much fun, lol). This isn't the same as playing in position. Getting as far as G is probably best done by working on the 3-octave scale of G.
Andrew
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wtw said
Interesting, Whistler's first book for viola is 3rd position and half-position… I'd forgotten that one, but it's useful for sure. So the order for violin and viola differs a little? (looks like 5th comes rather late with viola)I can't say I know any position, I'm just more or less comfortable playing in them. I have no idea what notes I'm hitting, in any position. I sort of go "where I need to go" on the fingerboard. For 3rd, it used to be "hit and miss, and does not stick", except that it's started to sink in with time.
But if I ever come across those Whistler's books, I'll have a look…
I think it's worthwhile to get 2nd and half-position down before 5th on viola, because you start having to work around the body of the viola in 5th position.
At this point, shifting is mostly automatic for me. I tend to think in terms of fingerings rather than positions. In fact, shifting is so automatic when I see certain note patterns that I sometimes write in fingerings to remind myself not to shift, in order to avoid awkwardness farther along.
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Mouse said
@Fiddlerman How do you go about becoming familiar with the positions? I have ventured in because of songs, but I never really know whatI am doing. It is hit and miss, and it really does not stick. so I find myself avoiding them. I have the problem of being an extremely structured base learner. ............
Positions make sense based on string crossing choices, phrasing, and bowing preferences. However, that has nothing to do with learning to play in positions.
For me, I would just decide to play everything in 2nd position for a while regardless of if it was suitable or not. Then I would do the same with 3rd or 4th, and so on. I would do it so much in every position that I didn't have to think about it any longer. Once I was comfortable reading music in all these positions it was just about using positions that work with the music.
Hope this is helpful!
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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@Fiddlerman That was very helpful.
So, if I play a song in 2nd position for all the normal 1st positions with the first finger, I would just extend the 1st finger back to, say, the B on the A string, etc. But, if it is an E flat, I would temporarily shift back so the extension is doable because E flat is already an extension back, right?
I would be able to do with my my violin, viola and cello songs. I need to stop being hesitant about going beyond what I know, which is extremely basic.
Thanks.
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Mouse said
@Fiddlerman That was very helpful.So, if I play a song in 2nd position for all the normal 1st positions with the first finger, I would just extend the 1st finger back to, say, the B on the A string, etc. But, if it is an E flat, I would temporarily shift back so the extension is doable because E flat is already an extension back, right?
No, I wouldn't do it that way. Even though it's inconvinient, I would play everything in 2nd position as practice. In other words, you would play that B on the A string on the D string with the 4th finger instead. So, just keep it simple for this exercise.
I would be able to do with my my violin, viola and cello songs. I need to stop being hesitant about going beyond what I know, which is extremely basic.
Thanks.
Exactly, for practice, you can sound bad and make mistakes. You don't need to stick with things that are easy and comfortable. 😁
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Thanks. Yep, the 4th finger in D makes sense.
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So, this is interesting. I Googled a different way and came up with this article from Cello.org. It is very interesting, and makes sense, for doing 4th position after first, on a cello.
What to learn after first position?
It makes sense that 4th position would be best for cello because of the curve of the neck at the body.
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Gordon Shumway said
I wonder how much time Pierre would bother with 7th position on the G and D strings rather than shift down and use higher strings instead?
This weekend I was trying to remember how grossly I had doubted Pierre in this thread, because I was surprised by the following grade 6 piece from 20 years ago, where there's a measure in 6th position on the G string. I'm playing Greensleeves from the same book, and Ravel is one of my favourite composers.
Andrew
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Gordon Shumway said
...Whistler's order of preference is 1, 3, 5, 2, 4.
He is basically right in terms of what you need for orchestras and other stuff, but 2nd is very useful for much baroque music in my opinion (the HIP view is that they liked to do things like slide up and down a semitone from B to C or C# to D on the A string or E to F or F#to G on the D string). So my order of preference would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, in fact. If you practise a one-octave scale on each string to end on your pinky, you are shifting to 4th. I'm also told violists like 2nd position when it enables a semitone stretch from 3rd finger to pinky, since you play the viola.
Whistler doesn't take violists into account. Don't bother with him. Just have a look at Sitt free on this forum: -
https://fiddlerman.com/wp-cont.....part-2.pdf
https://fiddlerman.com/wp-cont.....part-3.pdf
Whistler uses Sitt for 2nd and mostly Wohlfahrt for 3rd, but Whistler is very sniffy about 2nd and goes overboard on 3rd. Sitt is fine for both.
Incidentally, I was re-reading Galamian during the weekend.
He said - in 1962 - "the obsession with odd-numbered positions, and the disdain for even-numbered ones, is now old-fashioned." (or similar words - that's from memory. I have the book here and could type it up, but it's not worth it).
Whistler on double-stopping is 1947. I don't have a copy of his position books any longer, so I don't know what their dates are.
If you look at editions of BWV1043, you'll see Oistrakh (1965 for Peters) automatically went for 3rd position where Manze more often goes for 2nd nowadays.
Andrew
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I was re-reading Galamian during the weekend.
He said - in 1962 - "the obsession with odd-numbered positions, and the disdain for even-numbered ones, is now old-fashioned."
...
Whistler on double-stopping is 1947. I don't have a copy of his position books any longer, so I don't know what their dates are.
I always meant to update this.
Summary:
Whistler wrote in 1944 and 1947, "odd-numbered positions are catnip to me. I spit on even-numbered positions. Hack, pteugh!"
Galamian wrote in 1962, "obsession with odd-numbered positions, and disdain for even-numbered ones, is now old-fashioned."
=================================
The OP uses the word "logical", and the logic is in the music, as Pierre says: -
Fiddlerman said
Positions make sense based on string crossing choices, phrasing, and bowing preferences.
On the whole it seems that 3rd is more widely useful for orchestral music, whereas 2nd has more specific uses - often in baroque if you want an F, it's better to play it on the A string than on the E string (it may be followed up by stuff on the D string), (this is all an atrocious paraphrase of Manze's HIP pov - to generalise would require me to give examples). A fiddler might find 2nd more useful than 3rd, I'm guessing.
Could it be the circle of fourths (fifths) that makes 3rd more common when playing classical music (semi-serious)?
However, that has nothing to do with learning to play in positions.
Practising something like a Sitt étude (playing in position) is a strange thing - it's often too easy on its own - it's like a bridge problem - a warning bell is rung that there is a problem, which makes it easier to solve. Likewise, a Sitt étude in 2nd position is easier to play on its own than incorporating 2nd or 3rd position into a piece of music according to the musical logic. The shifts have to be planned ahead, whereas editions of Sitt have all the fingerings explicitly printed to force you into position (sometimes even when logic doesn't really come into it either!).
But these things become less mysterious in time. The main thing is to push ahead despite doubt. One day you'll wonder why you doubted. Perhaps the best thing is to play Sitt's études that shift between 1st, 2nd and third to get a feel for them all.
Andrew
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