Teaching even finger spacing in the lower positions on the cello is one of the more challenging tasks for the cello teacher. It is especially difficult for the public school orchestra teacher who must find a way to teach this to an entire group of beginning cellists.

As is commonly recognized, the main problems with finger spacing with beginning and intermediate cellists are;

• The 1st and 2nd fingers tend to be too far apart
• The 2nd and 3rd fingers tend to be too close
• The 3rd and 4th fingers tend to be too far apart

I like to take this a step further and include;

• The 1st and 3rd fingers tend to be too close
• The 2nd and 4th fingers tend to be too close
• The 1st and 4th fingers tend to be too close

To compound the difficulties of finger spacing, many recent methods start with all four fingers down before any finger spacing issues have been worked out. I prefer to start with the first finger and proceed to the other fingers from that point so that finger spacing issues can be worked out before putting all the fingers down. It is rare indeed for a beginning cellist to be able to place all four fingers down simultaneously in the correct spots. If the average beginning cellist is not going to be able to put all four fingers down in the correct spots, then we are reinforcing bad habits. It is also detrimental too the ear, as the students begin to hear uneven finger spacing as correct.

So how can we as cello teachers correct these finger spacing problems? Here are some ideas.

First, I strongly believe that approaching left hand technique with a slight slant (pronation) in the left hand helps immensely with even finger spacing, particularly between fingers 1, 2, and 3. This has been pointed out by many excellent teachers, including William Pleeth,Gerhard Mantel, and Rudolf Matz.

Try this experiment;

Hold your hand in a traditional square left hand position (90 degree angle to strings) on the cello fingerboard and try to spread apart your 2nd and 3rd fingers. This is notoriously difficult for beginning cellists. Now hold your hand with a slight slant (slight pronation) and try spreading apart your 2nd and 3rd fingers. Which is easier? In my experience, it is much easier to create the proper distance between 2 and 3 with a slight slant in the left hand. If we are going to ask our beginning cellists to place all the fingers down with even finger spacing, then they have a much better chance doing this from a slanted position.

It is very common in the method books to teach F# (3rd finger) before F-natural. In fact, many method books continue to drill the F# long before the F-natural is introduced. In my experience, the result of this is a second finger that goes down too close to the 3rd finger with a huge space between the 1st and 2nd fingers. Also, because the 3rd finger is a weak finger, the strong second finger comes close to the third in an effort to assist. Instead of this I highly recommend learning the second finger after the first finger immediately followed by the third finger. When the student plays the 1st finger followed by the 3rd finger, they also need to be thinking about the spacing between the 1st and 2nd to ensure even finger spacing. But how can this be done if the 1st and 2nd fingers have not been practiced first? Also, if you introduce the 2nd finger followed immediately by the 3rd finger you can teach minor and major from the beginning, which is great for ear training.

I always like coming up with corny sayings. I think it helps the students remember concepts. So here are the corny sayings I use to teach finger spacing;

• 1 and 2, Right Next To You!
• 1 and 3, A Stretch There Must Be!
• 2 and 3, A Stretch There Must Be!
• 2 and 4, Stretch a Little More!
• 3 and 4, Right Next Door!
• 1 and 4, Stretch a Little More!

I like to drill these sayings with the students followed by finger patterns.

These do not have to be elaborate. I usually do a "Call and Response" starting with only two fingers. I remind the student of the saying and proceed to play a pattern with those two fingers and have the student repeat the pattern. This is the order I follow for warm ups when teaching finger spacing with "Call and Response";

• Adjacent fingers (1-2, 2-3, and 3-4)
• Fingers that skip over another finger (1-3, 2-4)
• 3 note finger patterns that use adjacent fingers (1-2-3, 2-3-4)
• 3 note finger patterns that skip over a finger (1-2-4, 1-3-4)
• 4 note finger patters (1-2-3-4, 1-3-4-2, 1-2-4-3, 1-3-2-4, etc.)

What I like about the call and response is that I can monitor the students progress and adjust accordingly. I am always reminding the students of the sayings before I proceed to the next level of finger patterns.

You can also call out a finger pattern and have the student respond with "closer" and "further". For example;

• 1-2: Closer!
• 2-3: Further!
• 2-4: Further!
• 1-3: Further!
• 3-4: Closer!

and

• 1-2-4: Closer-Further!
• 1-3-4: Further-Closer!
• 1-2-3: Closer-Further!

All of these finger patterns using "Call and Response" work great as warm ups and exercises. As the students get better, you can have them do the calls with the teacher and class doing the responses.

Keep drilling these finger patterns and remind the students of the finger spacing and it will go a long way towards developing good intonation and even finger spacing.

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