Position Changes (Shifting) on the Cello

More complete answers to these questions are left to other articles. To see how these questions apply to clean shifts on the cello, please click the link. Future articles and videos are planned for other types of shifting so stay tuned!

To get us started, however, here are more general principles and suggestions.

If you think of shifting as the attempt to find isolated spots on the cello fingerboard, you are working too hard!  I am not even sure a full fledged genius would be able to pull this off!

I'm here to pass along a bit of wisdom that I learned from my own teachers; when playing the cello, always think of notes in relation to other notes around it (i.e. think in positions). Avoid approaching the cello as merely a string of isolated notes apart from the larger context of positions. This doesn't mean you literally have to shift with all your fingers down; it's more conceptual than that.  It means that the note you are shifting to is part of something larger - as part of a finger pattern within a position - and that you have a strong conceptual sense of this relationship between the individual note and the position to which it belongs.

All of this is no different than how we orient ourselves in daily life. Think of how you find your way around the local grocery store; my guess is you think of where items and aisles are in relation to other items and aisle.  You nor I are human GPSs.  We think of location in terms of spacial relationships. 

Notice the title of this article uses the terminology "position change".  Position change, in my opinion, is a better way to phrase what I am attempting to communicate.  A position change is from one group of notes to another group of notes.  It isn't a note to note approach. Thinking of shifting from position to position instead of note to note can greatly increase accuracy but how do we practice this?  

Third, and this is the more advanced version, practice double stops from position to position. Practice as many combinations of double stops as you can think of.  Be sure to pay attention to intonation at all times.  Following these steps is a highly effective way to practice shifting from position to position.  For more detail, I highly recommend An Organized Method of String Playing by Janos Starker in which he uses actual examples from the repertoire to show how to practice difficult shifts.

And lastly, now practice connecting the departure note and the arrival note in the passage you are learning.  

Let's move on now to the physicalities involved in position changes.  With the exception of desiring a certain effect on the cello, I recommend shifting as slowly as possible. Try this experiment;

Hold your hand out in front of you with the palm to the ground.  Move it from point A to point B and back again as quickly as you can. Now move it slowly. Which causes more tension in the arm and hand?  If you move your arm suddenly and too quickly, the arm tenses up.  If you move it smoothly and slower, it stays more relaxed.

So when we shift, it is necessary to develop shifts that are not sudden and quick but smooth and as slow as possible. But how do we do this?

There's an old saying; "Leave early, drive slowly, arrive safely". The same is true in shifting; "Leave early, shift slowly, arrive accurately". The key to a slower shift is to begin the motion early in the arm and hand with the finger the last to move. This provides a couple of advantages; first, the overall speed of the shift will be slower while still enabling you to arrive on time in the new position. And, second, if you leave early, you can travel slower and expend less energy.

Establishing inertia in the arm before you leave the position also helps prevent tension.  By establishing inertia early you do not have to suddenly move the entire mass of the arm all at once. To wait and move the arm all at once and quickly results in a sudden contraction in the muscles of the arm, resulting in tension.

The tell tail signs of late, fast shifts are sudden jerky motions in the arm coupled with tension. Shifts that begin early and move more slowly are smooth and look effortless.

Try another experiment; hold you hand out in from of you with your palm to the ground. Now move in a straight line from point A to point B and back again. Now move your hand with a slight arch (half circle) from point A to point B and back again. Which had less tension; the straight line or the half circle? I find that in my arm the half circle results in less tension than the straight line. Why is this? If you merely travel in a straight line, all of the work is accomplished by one set of muscles, the bicep and tricep. If you move in a half circle, other muscle groups are involved, such as the shoulder. When you involve other muscle groups - when you divide up the work in cello technique - no one muscle or set of muscles does all the contracting and the overall effect is a feeling of less tension. How can we apply this principle in shifting?

Here is what I suggest; when moving  the arm and hand early as discussed above, make the motion a half circle in the elbow with a slight rise in the wrist ;with the finger the last to move. This creates an early, slow shift with a half circle motion.

For Action Studies to practice all of these motions see Trampoline, Diving Board, and Bunny Hop.

The rest of the issues will be covered in forthcoming articles when I discuss portamentos (so-called French shifts) and clean shifts (so-called German shifts).