The importance of good fingerings
As a violinist, we need to always think about fingerings when we play. Good fingerings will help you play more musically in a singing passage, and more easily and efficiently in a fast, technical passage. Fingerings will contribute greatly to your overall performance if you know how to apply them appropriately.
We will talk about the basic concepts of what makes good and bad fingerings here. Then we will look at more specific fingering tips in the next few articles.
The most fundamental rule: Recognize the tonal color of each string
Each string has its own tonal characteristics; the E string is bright whereas the G string has a much darker tone. You can also say that one string has a warm tone while another string is more optimistic. You can come up with all sorts of characteristics on each string.
And this is the first concept to understand when you decide fingerings. We decide what kind of tone color we want from each note we play. It is better to stay on the E string rather than A if you want the passage to be bright. Stay on the G string as much as you can instead of using the D string if you want to play with a rich and warm tone
Stay on one string to play a phrase
Because each string as its own colors, we want to stay on one string when we play a phrase, especially a singing phrase. You don't want to mix up different strings, hence different tone colors without a good musical reason to do so. This is why we are more likely to go up and down on the same string rather than to cross the strings.
In a fast passage, stay on one string if you don't have to shift much. If you can play all of the notes on one string in the 2nd position where you would have to cross strings if you were in the 1st position, play in the 2nd position to avoid string crossings. Crossing strings are more tasking to your bow arm than playing on the same string. When you avoid string crossings, that alone will make your playing cleaner and easier.
Cross strings for technical efficiency
However, when you are playing a technical passage you often need to cross strings rather than to shift up and down to stay on one string. This is because you simply do not have time to shift up or down to the next note because the notes are fast, and the outcome will be messy if you decided to shift instead.
You can play more cleanly and in tune more easily when you don't shift. If the phrase requires a fast precision with clenliness, crossing strings will be the better choice.
Balance between the two methods
Many phrases will require us to switch strings even if they are singing melodies because we would be shifting too often or the intervals are too large to shift adequately. But then, it does not sound very musical if we are always crossing strings.
We need to decide how much shifting, or string crossing is appropriate in each phrase. Generally speaking, you want to stay on one string as much as you can for a singing passage, while don't be afraid to cross strings when the phrase requires quick and clean execution of the notes.
When we come up with fingerings, we have to think about which note is best to switch from one string to another. We have to think about it from both technical and musical needs. Finding a good balance between the technical and musical needs is one of the key elements to good fingerings.
We will dive deeper into more specific examples to study the secrets of good fingerings.