December Technique Focus: Shifting

I decided that my studio December technique focus point is shifting! I gave all my intermediate students these exercises I wrote out. Since it is December, I wanted to have a winter theme and I wanted them to have a mental picture to associate with smooth, beautiful, easy shifting. Like skating, shifting on the violin requires left hand accuracy, speed, and relaxation.  I’m not an ice skater, but I appreciate watching skaters. Professional ice skaters make it look easy. They move with fluid, smooth movements. I want my students left hands to look like that, fluid and smooth; no grabbing the neck, or jerky, sticky shifts. So I titled this Fingerboard Skating.

The ideas for fingerboard skating are not original with me. You can find similar ideas in The Artist’s Technique of Violin Playing by Demetrius Dounis. The late John Kendall who brought the Suzuki method to the United States taught this shifting exercise.  You can watch a video of him demonstrating the exercise in his Ideas for Violin Teaching Videos, Part 3 at time stamp 27:50. I wrote out on the A string the complete exercise.

Shifting and Staff Reading

I don’t expect them to look at Fingerboard Skating after the first couple days. This exercise is easy to remember and understand the concept. But having it down on paper gives them something to refer to and make sure they are not skipping any of the shifts. I also want them to see on paper what pitches they are shifting to. A subtle connection of note to note on the staff with shifting. Many of them understand the physical component of shifting, but they don’t make the connection of the a new finger number over a pitch and that it means to shift. So in order that they would interact a little more with this concept, I drew blanks on each line. After printing the pages out, their second assignment is to write in the position number they are shifting into. I want them to think it through and see it on the page in their own handwriting.

Shifting Tempo

Kendall recommends practicing the exercise at a dotted quarter = 88. He says the “wave” shouldn’t be too slow, or too fast. They need to hear top and bottom pitches in the glissando as getting into the position. Even though they aren’t stopping the hand. If the exercise is too slow, then we loose the speed needed in shifting. But, as I was going over this with students at lessons yesterday, I found that my new shifters needed to go much slower to find the pitches. They went slower and not in the rhythm pattern. The muscle motions are still new, and the higher positions were slightly scary for them. The students who have been shifting for over a year, could do this easily. So, there is a range of speed depending on where the student is in learning to shift.

Pedagogical Goals for Technique Focus Point: Shifting 

These are my goals for students in Fingerboard Skating:

• Understand muscles used in shifting. (Body mapping)
• Precise shifting.
• Quick shifting.
• “Non-stop motion but the peaks and valley should be in tune without stopping.”
• Know the pitch and position you are shifting to on any finger.