The Neck Positions

(illustration only; not a reference regarding the positions)

I started taking cello lessons when I was 9 years old, and since then I’ve had six different cello teachers. Never have I been presented with a map of how the terrain of the positions look like.

At some point in my learning, thinking in terms of positions stopped being relevant after all; tones shifted from being numbers (1, 2, 3) to being letters (a, b, c). I play g, let’s say, and which finger and which position I’m in will vary depending on how I want to play it from one day to the next. It also varies according to which finger is the most confident for any given task. I don’t write fingerings in my music; I see the music as patterns of pitches, patterns I recognize after years of playing.

However, before the pieces fall into place and we get to the point of being able to play tones as tones rather than as numbers, there is a strong urge to understand how these ‘positions’ are laid out. I would have had that urge too if I had started my lessons as an adult rather than as a child. The curious thing is that as a teacher I blurt out “play this in the 2nd position”, “play that in the 3rd position”, and naturally I need to answer when questions are being raised.

I have now come to the point where I really need to have something to offer to my pupils other than my confusing demonstrations, confusing because the positions seem to be overlapping each other.

So much that has to do with playing the cello is flexible; our fingers, the phrasing of the music, how we structure our practice… It can seem like there is nothing concrete to really hold on to. I highly sympathize with this frustration, and it makes me understand why some teachers start their lessons by introducing temporary anchor points such as a sticker behind the neck of the cello where the thumb should ‘always’ be. The intention is good, but it creates problems as soon as the pupil realizes that the thumb should be quite flexible as well…

So now I’ve come up with a map of how I understand the positions. I would love to get your feedback. Do you have a different understanding of the neck positions?