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Technique: Creative fingering for violinists

2026-09-25T05:04:00

Leo Copyright Jackie Rado

Leo Phillips explores how players can experiment with different approaches to violin fingerings and hand frames

Fingerings learnt early in the teaching process must be as simple as possible. However, this can lead to students thinking that certain notes should be played with a certain finger in a certain position, and can create smudging and less than ideal fingerings. For example, students may think they must always play 2-2 from C to C sharp in first position on the A string, which will smudge the sound. They should instead search for a better alternative…

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