How to Play the Fiddle in Left Hand Position

Video Transcript

Hello! I'm David Kaynor on behalf of expertvillage.com, and you can find out more about me at my own website www.davidkaynor.com. I'm going to talk briefly about the left hand position in playing the fiddle. Now there are very many options within the classical and folk about the position of the left hand in playing a instrument, but the thing that is common to most of them is that the left hand position should enable the player to play with the most speed, the most accurately, the least amount of effort, the most expression, and the for the longest time without getting tired or hurt. Some people have said to be able to hold a violin without supporting it with the left hand, that in and of itself frees up the left hand to move as much as possible. What I tell my students is that the thumb of the left hand is very useful as a kind of platform and jumping off point, or as a platform for the fingers, sort of something they can work with and not position to. The fingers are then thought to be best able to arch down on the strings rather then press flat. Arching enables the finger tip to contact the string in one discrete place, where laying a whole pad on a finger on the string will essentially would cause a less clear tone as opposed to. I try to not to have my fingers retract to far from the strings when they are not actually holding down strings, just because I figure that the further they are from the string the more chance there is that they'll be inaccurate when they go to them. So I try to play my fingers fairly close to the instrument. And I try to have my hand to be relatively movable and relatively flexible. A lot of fiddlers play a very rigid hand, and if you are always playing just down close to the not in the lowest playing position that works, but it is good to be flexible so you can shift.

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