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Books › A comparitive study of the development of the left hand technic of the violin, 1913 › scan 15

Scan 15

A comparitive study of the development of the left hand technic of the violin, 1913

8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.

1though his technique was limited in comparison to that of some of his contemporaries—he does not exceed the third position and his double stops are extremely simple—excelled particularly in the use of trills and double trills. This is an important item, because a trill is really the root of all technical requirements, strength, precision, and agility. It follows, then, that all violinists who have a really beautiful trill have a good general technique, and a trill which lacks quality, accuracy, and brilliancy is usually accompanied by an inaccurate or low order of general technique.
3Whether all of our modern composers use more trills and ornamental figures than did the older composers, is hard to determine, because now it is a custom to write all ornamental figures in full, rather than simply to use the sign.
5The one great barrier to the technical development of Tarlini's time was the holding of the violin on the right side of the string holder. The really high development of modern technique was not made possible until the time of Geminian's School, 1680-1761, when, for the first time, the holding of the violin on the left side of the string holder was recommended. Scores show that Geminian's compositions go up to the seventh position.
7A shift in violin playing is a change of the hand's position on the finger board. In the first position the note stopped by the first finger is one semitone or one tone, as the scale may require, above the open string. Whenever this position is quitted the player is said to be "on the shift," and the term is applied to a change of position in either direction, the player being said to shift up or down as the case may be. Practically the commonest and easiest method of shifting is to advance by intervals of a third.

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