Exactly How Many Violin Positions Are There?

Our desire to learn to learn should be perpetual. There should be no limit to our desire to pursue knowledge and just make ourselves much better, wiser, and more knowledgeable than what we are at present. To always have that desire to change for the better and to improve should be our defining characteristic. After all, we are all still evolving and developing, so looking to the next level is but a natural thing for us to do. But of course, we still need to have the determination to back it all up. It is one thing to have that natural desire, probably inherent in all of us, but it is an entirely different matter to actually go out and achieve whatever knowledge we might want to learn or skill we’d like to acquire.

Those were my exact same sentiments when I decided on pursuing my musical inclination. It was a very serious decision on my part, particularly because I have every intention of making a career out of it later on. I’d love to be really good at playing the violin, so that when I finally step away from my present career, the world of music is there waiting for me. But still, I am not yet ready, and until that day when I am finally prepared arrives, I would continue practicing and learning every little thing that I can about the violin.

Violin Positions

I have to admit that learning how to play the violin has posed some real problems for me. For one, I did not expect that it is as difficult as it has turned out to be for me. The most recent aspect of violin playing that I have studied and still studying is all about violin positions. I’ve always heard the question, ‘how many violin positions are there’. It turned out that the term positions does not really concern the keys but where the left hand is on the fingerboard. The so-called positions are there to allow string players to play high notes and also to make playing some passages easier by eliminating some string crossings that can be considered as tricky.

The first position is where most beginners start, although there are some methods that actually start with the third position. It is actually the most common position used in all of string music. When you move your hand up the neck of the violin, so that the second finger is replaced by the first finger, gets you in second position. Then allowing the first finger take the place of the third finger results in being in third position. The process will be repeated until the final position, which is the fifteenth. So overall, there are actually fifteen violin positions, although it is not that common to hear references that are beyond the seventh.