An age old question when it comes to learning the violin, viola, or cello, if we already know the letter names, perhaps from previous piano study or school music classes, do we need to bother with learning the violin fingering/numbering system?
Letter names are critical when talking universally about music, harmony etc. We will certainly find our violin fingering system falling short if we try to talk with our clarinet or piano friend about a "3 on the A string." However, fingerings within our violin study and are critical for making decisions about how we will physically find notes and create arrangements moving around the instrument. They also give us hints about how we’ll need to modify our hand shapes to find the correct intonation.
In the beginning stages, either system can be equally helpful. It really depends on which one we happen to learn. As a teacher needing to help students adjust to the correct pitches and intonation in the moment, I’m quick to identify what language the student is most accustomed to and we lean into that with beginners. More advanced students are usually fluent in both systems, so, for reasons we'll discuss, I'll flip quickly between the two depending on what is most helpful for the situation. But there are certainly many beginners who forgo fully committing to learning the letter names, relying entirely or almost entirely on the numbering system. This will absolutely hold them back eventually, but not recognizing the usefulness of the fingering system is also limiting.
Identifying a note on a page of sheet music as a C or a C# might seem much better than calling it a “low 2” or a “high 2.” And it probably is, isolated to that moment, before we pick up our instrument. Perhaps it’s still a bit better even when we do have our instrument in our hands if we’re at the stage where we've only played it as a middle finger on the A string in first position.
Within the bigger picture, knowing it’s the C or a C# an octave above middle C (technically C5 or C#5) AND that we’re going to be playing it as either a “low 2” or a “high 2” on the A string in first position conveys all the information we need - it will need to sound like a C or a C# to everyone, including our tuner, and to accomplish this we are choosing to play it with our middle finger in either a contracted or a stretched out way.
Even then, with the finger and finger shape limited to that one location on one string, the fingering system still might not sound very necessary though. We really have to take in the fact that, for example, the C# we find in first position on the A string, we're talking that EXACT pitch in that EXACT same octave can be played as:
- the high 2 in 1st position we’ve been talking about
- a low 3 in 1st position (maybe we needed the index for a Bb, the middle for a C, and now we’re technically calling the “C#” a Db… the finger will feel very contracted and high on its tip)
- a high 3 in half position (maybe we needed the index for an Bb, the middle for a Cb, and after the C#, which again we’d now calling a Db, we have the pinkie for an Eb… 1 and 2 will be squished together, we’ll have to separate across the webbing of the middle and ring fingers, and it will also be a whole step up to the 4th finger - yes, it sounds complicated and learning the standard finger patterns beyond letter names and fingerings will be very useful, but we’ll save that for another post!) On the A string:
- a low 4 in half position (let’s say we have a quick chromatic passage running up and down the notes Bb, B, C, Db…. the pinkie will be quite curled and contracted)
- a high 1 in second position
- a low 1 in third position (reaching back from the knuckle) On the D string:
- a high 4 in third position (stretch!)
- a high 3 in fourth position (stretch!)
- a 2 in fifth position
- a high 1 in sixth position On the G string:
- a high 4 in seventh position (better really bring that elbow and thumb around!)
- a high 3 in eighth position (stretch!)
- a 2 in ninth position
- a high 1 in tenth position (if we do ever happen to find ourselves up this high, our only thought is why this composer is insisting this passage be played sul G - all on the G string!)
Note: Highs, lows, and the “regular” fingerings above that don’t have any particular qualifiers, are not an exact science. They suggest a feeling within the hand shape based on our most typical keys and experiences. They are certainly useful in isolation (instructing a student to change a low 2 into a high 2), and up to the point where we will have to start thinking more in terms of overall finger patterns (where we will have fingers close or even touching as in half steps/semitones, and where they will be a bit further apart in whole steps/tones).
Again, the C# detailed above is the exact same note, now found on three different strings, using different fingers in many different positions. Those fingering choices are going to depend on other notes in the passage, the exact timbre/tone quality we want out of our notes (or the composer or arranger wanted), the bowings surrounding these notes, etc. We should know it’s a C#, but from there we also need to know exactly HOW to play it.
In many instances we will just play it in first position, using the middle finger as we always have. Even here though, fingerings can be useful. The violin is a particularly physical instrument to play. In a situation where a student is playing out of tune, or maybe even using the incorrect finger, calling it a “high” 2, versus just a 2, or a C#, is language that can quickly help them orient to the spot - it’s the middle finger set in a more stretchy, reaching way. We don’t have frets (or keys, or buttons, or levers) so every note we play has a certain posture. It’s essentially hand yoga and we have to become master yogis, running through a smooth "vinyasa flow" all the way to the final notes of our songs and pieces. To find our way back to the correct pitches again and again we first and foremost have to IMAGINE the pitch we’re striving for ahead of time, and must absorb all these nuances of our hand shape, arm position, and fingerboard position, note by note. We have to have a clear picture of our goal AND a way to get there.
At a more advanced level we will encounter instances where we basically throw the idea of positions out the window however, and think even beyond just half and whole steps to broader distances and relationships. Maybe we’re up so high we can access several notes without technically moving our thumb or hand itself, therefore straddling a few neighboring positions (moving the thumb is what technically commits us to a new position.) Or, maybe we’re shifting so rapidly between several positions, either covering a lot of ground up and down the fingerboard, or doodling around a more narrow range, yet shifting near constantly to navigate many accidentals cleanly, tricky string crossings, or to avoid quick fifths?
Note: Fifths refer to the interval or distance between pitches, and on a violin these show up as notes right across from each other on neighboring strings. It’s impossible for many of us with smaller fingertips to cover both strings well enough for them to both be securely in tune, especially in higher positions, so our choices are quickly leaping our finger over, which might create displeasing extraneous sounds, or we can shift up or down to an adjacent finger, which, while potentially introducing a slight shifting sound, can often sound much cleaner overall.
Knowing either system - letter names or fingerings - gets us somewhere, but both gives us the tools we need to not only decipher sheet music, but also play it on the violin.
I suggest thinking in terms of letter names when you’re first reading your sheet music. You see a note three spaces up the staff in treble clef, and beyond thinking “high 2,” by thinking C# you have actually opened yourself up to all those fingering options above. As you start looking at neighboring notes in the phrase, identifying if some will require string crossings, and then considering our four fingers on the left hand we have to somehow orient on the fingerboard to get between all of them, that’s when we’ll have to start make fingering decisions. How will we “arrange” this music so it’s actually playable? That’s when that “high 2” might really need to become a “high 4” up in third position on the D string, or one of those many other options, and where just thinking of it as a generic C#5 to be played somewhere, hopefully, is not enough.
