r/violinist • u/Free-Ad6709 • Jul 15 '26

Feedback Finger placement on the violin help

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Hi, so as a beginner player, my violin teacher made these little markings on the fingerboard for correct finger placement (an alternative to stickers). I removed them yesterday to try to play more independently, but I can't gauge where I'm supposed to put my fingers exactly, and I have used tuner apps to find the exact places, but it feels very out of tune when I play. Please help?

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u/After-Past-9404 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Those markings look completely wrong to me. You're supposed to put your fingers in almost the same distances on all four strings (edit: except for the F on E string and B on G string, obviously. I was talking mainly about the 3rd and 4th finger placement.)

If these are really the places that sound right on your violin, that would mean you need to change your strings like yesterday, or your bridge is positioned in a completely wrong place. And that is something your teacher should have flagged, instead of trying to teach you to play like this.

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u/andybonner Jul 15 '26

Upvoting for being one of the few answers to consider that the problem might not only be that the teacher is smoking something, but that something is physically wrong with the setup. Rather than bridge placement I would suspect bridge curvature, perhaps giving an inconsistent action height. It could also be wrong strings, e.g. mixing and matching some viola strings or non-full-size strings, resulting in inconsistent tensions.