Moving between 1st, 3rd, and 5th
Three positions, two real landmarks (the 3rd-position frame copy, the 5th-position thumb touch), and now the job is moving cleanly between all three — up, down, and past each other, not just arriving once and stopping.
Triangulating
How to play it
Take each shift slowly at first — arrive, check the pitch against your ear, then move on. Speed comes later; accuracy comes first.
Every shift here is same-finger (1st to 1st) — the simplest case from the-four-kinds-of- shift. A different-finger shift is harder: the hand still has to travel the same distance,
but a new finger has to take over the stopping job the instant it lands, with no chance to
"feel" the old finger's grip carry over. You'll meet that properly once double stops (Movement
E) put two fingers down at once — for now, focus on making the same-finger case reliable in
both directions, on every string.
Try it
Try
Play the ladder above — 1st, 3rd, 5th, 3rd, 1st — on the A string, then repeat it on the E
string using the 5th-position landmark's own note (fifth-position). Go slowly enough that
every shift is deliberate, then gradually speed it up without losing the landing accuracy.
The usual mistake
Only ever practising shifts in one direction (up). Downward shifts are genuinely different — the thumb has to lead — and skipping them in practice means the first time you meet one in real music is also the first time you've ever had to control it.