What does shifting mean in music?

Left hand & fingerboard

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.

A clean shift has three parts: releasing the thumb and hand pressure, travelling on a guide finger that stays lightly in contact with the string, and arriving with the hand already in the shape the new position needs. Players who move by lifting the hand and dropping it somewhere new have no feedback and land inconsistently.

The audible slide between the old and new note is called a portamento. In some styles it is a fault to be minimised; in romantic repertoire it is an expressive device to be shaped deliberately. Either way, controlling it means controlling bow pressure through the shift, lightening the bow during the travel is what makes a shift disappear.

Most curricula introduce shifting only after first position is genuinely secure, because a shift is a movement between two known destinations and the destinations have to be known first.

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.
Thumb position: Thumb position is a cello and double bass technique in which the left thumb leaves the back of the neck and presses down on the string itself, acting as a movable nut.
Intonation: Intonation is accuracy of pitch, on a fretless string instrument, the ongoing skill of placing each finger so the note is in tune with the harmony around it.

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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