Violin Positions eBooks
Exercises and scales for violin positions – printable PDF
One eBook for each position (2nd–5th). Print it at home on A4 and use it on the music stand like a regular book.
Work on positions doesn’t start when a student needs to play a piece in a higher position. First comes the new finger pattern, a secure hand, understanding the shift – and then gradually connecting the positions.
“My new favourite shifting and position-work book.”
Celia Cobb, The Strad, about the printed handbook Exercises and Scales for Violin Positions
What’s inside each eBook
- Finger-pattern exercises – short exercises on each string to learn the new finger pattern
- Shifting – exercises for all six types of shifts, fully written out for each finger
- Scales – one- and two-octave scales, first without shifts and then with shifts
- Printable PDF – A4, ready for the music stand or for a tablet
The six types of shifts: through the open string, with the same finger, with different fingers (from lower to higher and from higher to lower), substitution, half-change, with different fingers across strings.
Free: Where are the fingers?
Before you start, let your students explore the positions on an interactive violin fingerboard: see where every finger goes in 1st–5th position, hear every note and test yourself in a quiz with badges and a printable certificate. Free, no sign-up, works on phones.
Choose a position
2nd position
Learn and practise the second position.
€8.60
3rd position
Finger patterns, shifts and scales in third position.
€8.60
4th position
A systematic approach to the fourth position.
€8.60
5th position
Finger patterns, shifts and scales in fifth position.
€8.60
Bundles
Positions 2 & 4
€13.80
Positions 3 & 5
€13.80
All positions 2–5
€20
Payment and download via Gumroad – the PDF arrives in your inbox right after purchase.
What teachers say
“My new favourite shifting and position-work book.”
Celia Cobb, The Strad – read the review
“Her comprehensive, well laid-out handbook combines all the most important aspects of positions from second to seventh in clear, easy short stages, as well as connecting them through the carefully thought-out six different types of shifts.”
Mary Nemet, Stringendo (Australian Strings Association), 2021
“I love Ines’ book. All my new transfer students are required to get it. We have great fun with the easy layout, practical exercises and bonus scales.”
Heather Oaks, violin teacher, Ireland
Prefer a printed book?
Exercises and Scales for Violin Positions is also available as a printed handbook with positions 2 to 7.
About the author
Ines Ana Tomić, MA, is a Croatian violin pedagogue with over 25 years of teaching experience. Her students have won more than 120 prizes at national and international competitions, and many of them have studied or graduated at music academies in Croatia and abroad (Yale, Texas, Berlin, Vienna). She has received numerous awards for her work, sits on competition juries, mentors student teachers and has given more than 100 lectures and masterclasses for students and teachers.
She is the author of the violin textbooks Violina 1, 2 and 3, Exercises and Scales for Violin Positions, The Pizzicato Method – a series of seven books in English – and Growing Violinists. She is a mother of two.
