 This is a lesson on finding third position. I find that many students come to NCSSM with lots of violin experienced and they're very experienced in playing in third position. And others come and have never really had to shift and play in other positions than first before. This will get you started. Playing in third position is not that difficult. You just need to know what you're doing. So we're going to really go through a three-step process in learning to play in third position. The first step is learning to find third position and getting comfortable there without shifting a lot. The second step is learning to shift from first position to third position. And then the third step is learning to read notes in third position. And I really encourage you to follow these three steps in order. If you do that, it'll make the process much quicker. If you try to do all three at once, it can be very confusing. So let's begin by finding third position. I recommend that you do this without looking at any music or anything. Just follow the following steps. Now, probably most of you know that third position is when you shift your hand up the finger board so that the spot where your third finger was becomes the spot where your first finger will be. But the real question is how do I find that spot? Well, here's a little trick that I've learned. If I play open to third finger in first position, it's the tune, here comes the bride. Everybody give that a try. Maybe hit pause on the video recorder. Do it again. Now, we're going to move our hand up and we're going to play that same thing using first finger, open to first finger in third position. Notice when I shifted, I brought my thumb right along with the rest of my hand. You don't want to leave your thumb behind. I see a lot of students try to slide their finger but leave their thumb where it is and you don't want to do that. Everything shifts on up. So, that's a very important facet of shifting to third position. And if you don't hit it the first time, shift around. Wrong. Wrong. And you'll find it. Now, once you've found it, I encourage you to try that on every string. Same thing on the D string, same thing on the A string and the E string. At this point, I'm going to introduce the concept of finger patterns and we're going to have many opportunities to practice finger pattern exercises together. Let's play a finger pattern exercise. Now, I call this the 3-4 finger pattern exercise because there is a whole step between first and second, a whole step between second and third finger and a half step between third and fourth. The 3-4 name indicates where the half step is, third and fourth finger. First we do, here comes the bride. Wrong. Now, we'll play four quarter notes on each finger. Wrong. D string. Here comes the bride. Four quarter notes on each finger. A string. So, now you're playing in third position and you're ready to move on to other finger pattern exercises and then shifting exercises.