Bonus Lesson: Keep all the Fingers Down? (Question Response)
Posted by Thom on Mar 16, 2009 in All, Lessons, Mastery, Wisdom • 4 comments
Hello! I get a lot of comments and questions on this site, and I do my best to answer all of them directly on the comments. Sometimes, however, questions come up that I have come across in the past in teaching but didn’t think to address on this site. This is one such question:
Nicola wrote,
“Dear Thom! It has always been a childhood dream of mine to learn to play the violin and I have been practicing by myself for at least two hours a day for two weeks so far. I’m 41 and just thought, DO IT! but I don’t have enough money for private lessons. I was having trouble with bowing and then found your site! Oh my gosh! You have helped me sooo much and made me even more determined. But I have one HUGE problem, which none of my books seem to answer, or seem to contradict themselves. When you play, for instance, G on the D string, do you keep ALL three fingers down, or just put down the third finger? And when you move from B on the A string, to G on the D string, do you have to quickly put down all three fingers again to play G? Or just play B, then reach over with the third finger and play G on the A string? This is a problem with other notes, too. As you move up the notes, do you have to keep ALL fingers down? Many thanks for you wonderful lessons. Nicola in the UK!”
Hello Nicola,
While it is not totally necessary to keep all your fingers down to produce the pitch, you SHOULD get in the practice of keeping your fingers down for ease of playing. It is much easier to do ONE action rather than TWO (i.e. lifting your 2nd finger F# and putting down your 3rd finger G).
When switching strings, you do not need to put all 3 fingers down to “climb” up to G. Like you said, going from B on the A string to G on the D string, just anticipate the G by having your 3rd finger hovering over the G, or even down on the stringer if you have learned how to put your finger down (alternating fingers exercise) without muting the string next to it 
Short answer: Yes, keep your fingers down as much as possible.
Thank you for the great question, keep them coming!
Related posts:
I’m still a beginner (I’ve been playing for almost 2 months now) and I sometimes have the problem of keeping all my fingers down especially when I use my pinky or when I need to play the note wherein my middle finger is close to my index finger (like C natural for instance) I have a hard time keeping my middle finger close to my index finger… When I have to press my three or four fingers all together(including the pinky), my middle finger sticks out and it goes down later than the other fingers. Also, I tend to exert some pressure on my thumb (in order to reach with my pinky while placing my middle finger close to my index finger). My teacher said that my violin is a bit big for me(it’s 4/4) but that is something I can’t do anything about anymore(I’m 15 years old by the way)… It’s kinda making my fingers hurt (especially my thumb and my index finger because my having a hard time placing my middle finger close to it puts pressure on my index finger)… I hope you can help me with this problem (I’m using the Suzuki method book and I’m working on the Minuets, I started to notice this problem when I played the 12th song-Etude. I can play the songs (somehow) but sometimes my fingers don’t EXACTLY go to the tapes)… I need advice on what I can do (without having to buy another violin)… Great videos by the way!
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Thom reply on June 17th, 2009:
Thank you Shiela!
If your teacher comments your violin is big for you, that very well could be the case. While many of my friends switched to a full size around 13 or 14, I didn’t get my own full size until I was 16! A good friend of mine played a 3/4 through most of high school until he finally hit a growth spurt.
Sometimes you do have to go back to basics, if you learned bad habits it can be hard to undo them. Spend some time focusing on actually keeping fingers down while playing. My Alternating Fingers exercise is a good start. Try using it on different strings with different finger patterns (ex. using a low 2 or a high 3).
You say that you are exerting pressure on your thumb to reach your fourth finger. Try this experiment:
-Put your 1st finger down and reach your 4th up as high as you can without moving the 1st.
-Now put your 4th finger down and reach your first as far back as you can. Notice how much more range your hand has reaching BACK to the 1st finger rather than UP to the 4th!
So keeping that in mind; reach back when having a long stretch of fingers, practice your basics with alternating fingers, and look into trying out a 3/4 size to see how it fits!
Hope that helps!
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Hi Tom,
I’m just starting to learn the violin and find your videos to be very helpful. I now know the fingering chart and finger positions. However, my question is when reading the sheet music, for example, how do I know whether to play B with the first finger on the A string, or B with the second finger on the G string, or B played with the fourth finger on the E string. I am not sure how to read the notes on the violin in relation to the notes on the sheet music.
Thank-you.
Jason
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Thom reply on June 17th, 2009:
Hello Jason!
Great question! While its great that you’re excited and pushing forward, don’t get ahead of yourself too quickly. You will notice that each note, or each B in the instance of your question is pitched higher or lower than the others.
The first B that you will learn on Stringsavvy is on the A string, and is marked by a note on the middle line on the staff. That B will always require that pitch to be played. The B on the G string will be marked by a note one ledger line below the staff, and the B on the E string is two ledger lines above.
Following along in your Essential Elements book will help make this clearer. Hope that helps!
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