Positions, Computed

A bowed fingerboard has no marks on it, so the unit a player carries is not a distance — it is a place for the whole hand. Four fingers, a perfect fourth, and a decision about when to move.

On a guitar you can count frets. On a fiddle there is nothing to count, so the unit is the hand: a position fixes where the first finger sits, the four fingers cover a perfect fourth from there, and anything outside that span means moving. Learning the instrument is largely learning which position a phrase wants and when to leave it.

The four positions

One number is declared per position — the semitone offset its first finger takes above the open string. Every other figure here is arithmetic over that plus the registry's own open pitches:

Hand positions — offset, reach, and pitch coverage, all derived
Position1st finger offsetReachPitches covered
Half position1G3–A#528
First position2G3–B525
Second position4G3–C#625
Third position5G3–D625
Half PositionThe hand pulled back — the position you need twice a year and cannot fake.Position 1 of 4 First PositionHome — where nearly every traditional tune lives.Position 2 of 4 Second PositionThe one everybody skips — and the one that kills awkward crossings.Position 3 of 4 Third PositionThe first shift worth making — first finger takes what third used to.Position 4 of 4

They overlap on purpose

half position and first position share 24 pitches; first position and second position share 20 pitches; second position and third position share 21 pitches. That overlap is the whole reason shifting works: there is always a note you can reach both before and after the move, so the move has a target you already know the sound of. CI proves the overlap rather than trusting it — a set of positions with a gap between them would leave pitches unreachable and the build would fail.

What a finger number means

Not a fret. A finger number is an ORDINAL: the first scale note under the frame is finger 1, the next is finger 2, and whether the gap between them is a tone or a semitone depends entirely on the key. That is why the tables here place a scale rather than an abstract grid — and why the same finger pattern feels different in a different key.

Once the frames are familiar, take them to the scale maps, which name the position for every degree in every key, and to the bowing patterns, which are what the other arm is doing while all this happens.