What does guide finger mean in music?

Left hand & fingerboard

Guide finger

Also: ghost finger, anchor finger

A guide finger is a finger kept lightly on the string during a shift so the hand can measure the distance it travels rather than jumping blind.

A shift is a change of hand position, and the reliable way to make one is to keep contact with the string throughout, so the arm learns the distance as a physical sensation rather than as a guess. The finger that stays down is usually the one that was already playing, and it slides to the note the new position needs before the next finger arrives.

Done properly the slide is silent: the bow lightens or changes direction at the moment the hand travels, so the audience hears two notes rather than a swoop. When the slide is deliberately audible, it becomes a portamento, which is an expressive choice rather than a mechanical necessity.

Practising shifts with the guide finger audible first, then gradually hiding it, is the standard method, you cannot make silent what you have never heard.

Shifting: Shifting is moving the left hand to a new position on the fingerboard, and it is the technique that gives a string player access to the instrument's full range.
Position: A position is a fixed placement of the left hand on the fingerboard, numbered by which note the first finger falls on, so that a set of pitches is reachable without moving the hand.
Portamento: Portamento is an audible slide between two pitches, produced on a string instrument by shifting while the bow keeps the string sounding.
Third position: Third position is the hand placement in which the first finger sits where the third finger sits in first position, and it is the first shift most string students learn.

Every term in this glossary is taught in context somewhere in Arco's curricula, on the staff, on the keyboard, and on your own fingerboard at the same time.

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