Comments

Thank you, Drew. I am going to examine this more when I get home and have violin in hand, but what jumps right out at me is this paragraph.

"Do not curve the hand around the shoulder, but rather ascend over the top pivoting from the thumb, which should be under the neck (in a hitch-hiking pose — don’t hitch-hike!) just before the need to rise up and over. Imagine throwing something over your left shoulder with your left hand and slightly to your left side."

My teacher has said this sort of thing to me several times and in lesson I have no trouble doing. I do have a hard time duplicating when I'm on my own. Perhaps your wording will make it easier to put into practice.

I'm struggling with not moving my hand around the shoulder. I'll give it a try and see what happens though... Hilda has pretty big shoulders (she's not a Tertis model viola...)

Thank you so much! I have three weeks without lessons over the holidays and the competion is the week after lessons resume. I have this one shift from 3rd to 5th that is challenging. I abandoned the attempt on one measure to shift from 4th to 7th, and instead going back down to 3rd on a higher string...

Hi Drew,
I wrote to you a while back asking for the shipping costs of your book to Italy but haven't heard from you yet (apart from a virus alert) ..... let me know please, thanks
Terri Greetings,
perhaps the virus alert is prophetic. once the book enters your system ther eis no escape.
Cheers,
Buri
(in Julliard no-one can hear you scream...) Buri —
So, I have caught another victim — a delicious taste.
D. Teresa,
Thanks for persisting.
Did you get my email?
Drew Tara,
Hope it is helping.

Mendy,
Make sure you independently move your thumb under the neck anticipating the rise over the top. Do not get stuck with the thumb trying to remain on the C-string side or by trying to go way out to the right instead of up and over — only allow the finger to move in the direction of the shift up or down the string.

Make sure your instrument rests on the collarbone/shoulder-rest with your chin over the center tailpiece or slightly to the A-string side. The more your head is positioned to the C-string side, the greater the difficulty in shifts — especially the higher positions.

Do not twist in or out by rotating your left hand/arm excessively clockwise or counterclockwise. Maintain the beginning angle of the fingernails — the “faces” for the entire shift.

Do some very, very light slides without the bow. Keep the fingers like feathers and flawlessly shaped and proportioned sliding up to the end of the fingerboard and back down exactly the way you came — like a movie backwards or mirror image of the action. Do not squeeze in general and do not tighten the wrist.

When extremely high relative to hand/arm length the thumb should travel lightly on the side of the fingerboard. It simply prevents the instrument from swinging to the right and is similar to a cellist using the thumb positions except they are on top of the strings.

For the above to work exceptionally well, the instrument should be held with the strings parallel to the floor or slightly ascending. When shifting to a higher position one is actually going slightly down hill and when shifting to a lower positon one is slightly going up hill.

Without actually seeing your move it is difficult to know the exact holdback, but do let me know if I am hitting the right areas for you.

Hope this helps—
Drew