# Third position

Source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/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.**

It earns that priority for practical reasons: it puts a comfortable hand shape under the notes just above the staff, it lets a passage stay on one string instead of crossing, and its arrival point can be found by feel, on violin and viola the hand meets the body of the instrument, which gives a physical landmark that first-time shifters can trust.

Almost every school orchestra part above the first year reaches into third position at least once, and players who avoid it end up sliding or stretching for those notes with unreliable intonation. Learning it deliberately, with a guide finger and a slow silent shift, is a week or two of work that removes a permanent ceiling.

The positions above it follow the same logic; second position, awkwardly, is usually learned after third rather than before, because it lacks a physical landmark and is more often used as a passing solution than as a home.

Canonical source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/third-position