HOW TO PRACTISE ŠEVČĺK'S MASTERWORKS - 3

    Erroneous concepts of playing functions are greatly
to be blamed for causing uneconomic practise.  Even
outstanding teachers have erred in this matter, confusing cause and effect.  Thus, the pupil is usually told that he must place the fingers of the left hand as firmly as possible on the fingerboard.  Nothing could be more harmful and dangerous than this postulate. On the contrary the fingers must be placed lightly and with elasticity on the fingerboard.  Brilliant violin playing requires the optimum quick and effortless change of the fingers, which can only be achieved if a minimum of effort is applied in fingering.  If the finger is placed too firmly on the fingerboard, the surplus tension may influence the other fingers and impair
their independence.
   What induces the pupil as well as some less experienced teachers to believe that the fingers should be placed firmly on the fingerboard is the quick and elastic attack produced in faultless fingering (functioning of the grip), for this gives a firm, clicking impression.  However, this elastic attack is achieved only as a result of correct finger action; there is no short cut, or rather, it cannot be replaced by a makeshift
attack of the fingers' without seriously endangering the technic of playing by this sham function.
   Regulated according to Ševčík's teaching, the fingering position of the hand is the physiologically soundest one.  Forearm and back of the hand should form a straight line, and the left arm should be pulled in towards the middle of the body and turned inwards as far as this is possible without hypertension. Depending on its length, the thumb touches the neck of the violin either with the first joint or in the bend of the knuckle.  The common assumption that it was Ševčík's instruction to place the thumb under the neck of the violin is erroneous.
   What is decisive for a faultless technic is not so much the exact reproduction of movements as directed, but rather the kinesthetic adaptation to the necessary movements.  This feeling has to be sensed as an elastic grasp of the left hand.  In this a very fine elastic tension is felt at the back of the hand which will leave greatest freedom of movement to the fingers in the basic joints and yet guarantee elasticity in grasping. Only with this condition of the left hand will perfect
play result, leading to brilliant pearly playing of passages, rebounding trills and expressive vibrato.