For years as a young violinist, shifts seemed mysterious. Sometimes I’d nail a shift. Other times ... not so much. I knew that the more I practiced the shift, the better my odds. I focused on learning as much as possible about the shift: the beginning and end points, the path of my elbow, the positions involved, which finger I was shifting with. But still, every shift felt like at least a little bit of a gamble – like a roll of the dice.
That is, until I learned about finger pressure and its role during shifts.
“Push” … but how hard?
Finger Pressure
A little background info
Finger pressure (the force with which you press your finger into the string) is neither good nor bad. It’s just that we always want to use the least amount necessary. By definition, anything more than that is wasted effort. Or to put it another way:
Using too much finger pressure makes playing the violin harder than it needs to be.
This is an area worth exploring a little bit before we dive into finger pressure during shifts. Especially if you haven’t given much thought to finger pressure before, I recommend trying this simple experiment first.
Finger Pressure: preliminary experiment (optional)
Choose a scale or short passage that you don’t mind playing a few times in a row.
The first time through, play it normally.
On each successive time, try it with half as much finger pressure as the time before.
Repeat it until you get to the point where you get a raspy or static-like sound on most of the notes, due to your fingers not stopping the string enough. (Or on some notes, you might actually get a harmonic.)
Most likely it took much less finger pressure than you thought to get to that point. But the most important part is that now you know roughly where that point is.
Now do one last pass through the scale, trying to stay right on the border between too little and too much finger pressure. This is (ideally) your new normal.
Finger Pressure During Shifts
The actual shifting hack
During a shift, finger pressure acts like a brake on the motion from one position to the next. The harder you press your finger down, the more friction you’ll have to overcome to move your finger. So for the easiest shift, reduce your finger pressure to almost none – so there’s just the slightest contact between your finger and the string. (With that said, there are some musical situations when you do want increased finger pressure; more on that down below.)
So here’s a variation on a scale to help you explore finger pressure during shifts. The fully-notated version may look a little complicated, so I’m including a version with simplified notation.
Regardless of which one you read from:
Play the one-octave scale with one finger, up and down one string.
Release your finger to almost zero pressure before you start to move to the next position.
Give yourself lots of time for the shift (about an 8th note), and don’t worry whether your tempo is steady. Just focus on the finger release and slow shift.
Slur through the shift so that you can listen for the raspy sound of almost-zero finger pressure throughout the shift.
Resume normal finger pressure once you arrive in the new position.
click to enlarge
click to enlarge
Also repeat it on fingers 2, 3, and 4, transposing the scale to C, D, and E Major.
Bonus: Do this scale on each string. You’ll start to notice subtle differences in the amount of finger pressure required.
... and no, the goal isn’t to make all of your shifts sound like screechy static. At normal shift speeds and timings, the static will disappear and you’ll just be left with a clean and reliable shift. Just be sure to feel your finger release before you make the shift.
Glide through your shifts like you’re floating on air
The Benefits
Reliability & musical control
Reliability: I mentioned above that this was a breakthrough for the reliability of my shifts. Why? Because for all the other factors I was taking into account, I was oblivious to the finger pressure involved. So if my finger was pressing harder than usual (like if I was nervous), the usual amount of effort to get to the new position just didn’t cut it. I didn’t make it far enough to the new position ... and worst of all, I didn’t know why. But once I became aware of this factor, I suddenly had the power to turn my shifts from a roll of the dice into a sure thing.
Musical Control: This exercise is great not just because it makes shifts more reliable. It also gives you control over how much other people can hear (or not hear) your shifts. Here’s a simple formula:
more finger pressure = more glissando
less finger pressure = less glissando
almost no finger pressure = no glissando
Do you want to hide a purely utilitarian shift? Use almost no finger pressure during it, like in the exercise above. Nobody will hear it.
Do you want a particular shift to be an epic, expressive glissando? Use some – or maybe a lot of – finger pressure during the shift. Find the amount that gives the musical effect you want. (OK, there are some other factors you’ll want to include, too, like timing and old-note vs new-note, but those are for another post someday.)
Did you try this out? How’d it go? I’d love to know — leave a comment below!
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I’m a violinist and private teacher in the Chicago area, and in a previous musical life I was in a professional string quartet. Teaching violin and chamber music are dear to my heart. Send me a note or leave a comment on a post — I’d love to hear from you.