The movement of the left hand from one position to another on the fingerboard of any string instrument. Although terms for shifting did not appear until the early 18th century, Ganassi, in his Regola rubertina (1542–3), a treatise for viol players, had already referred to playing beyond the frets. He gave fingerings indicating two types of shift: 1-2-1-2-, necessitating numerous small hand motions, and 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4, requiring fewer large hand motions.
The 17th-century violin compositions of Marini, Biber, J.J. Walther and Marco Uccellini require, variously, the 3rd to 7th positions, particularly on the E string, and in double-stopped passages. In his Violinschule (1756) Leopold Mozart gave three reasons for changing positions: necessity, convenience and elegance. He advocated that the violin be held with the chin to facilitate playing in high positions. (See Violin, §I, 4(iii)(b).
In the 18th century the two composer-performers who brought playing in the high positions on all strings to a peak unsurpassed even in our time were Pietro Locatelli and Paganini. Locatelli's Capricci, probably written as cadenzas to L'arte del violino: XII concerti (1733), are as fiercely difficult, in terms of shifting to high positions, as Paganini's famous 24 Caprices op.1 (Milan, 1820). The 19th-century treatises for violin and cello treat shifting and playing in high positions as a matter of course. Modern string playing has tended to free itself from the convention of dividing the fingerboard into clear positions and makes extensive use of shifting by extension.
On plucked instsruments such as the lute and the guitar, shifting is essential when the instruments are used soloistically.
See also Fingering, §II;Position; Slide (2).
SONYA MONOSOFF