 This is an introductory video on how to use all of the variety of resources that I've provided for using finger patterns to teach upper positions, major scales, and shifting. This is a system that I've put together over the years that is not entirely my own ideas. This grows from the ideas of George Bornoff, the great pedagogue, and came to me really more firmly through the work of Dr. Marvin Rabin back in the 1980s at a seminar that I attended that he taught, and he gave me some information that I could really use, and I've taken it a couple of steps further and created a whole bunch of YouTube resources for you to use. These resources are designed for teachers to use in the classroom without a doubt. They can also be used for students to practice at home, and really they can also be used for parents to watch so that they can help their kids understand how the videos work and help them along. This system is sequential. It starts with concepts that we then build on and we kind of make them more difficult as we go. So it's a sequential system. Number two, it involves solid nomenclature. In other words, I've devised a naming system for these finger patterns that I think makes a lot of sense. And thirdly, a good system really needs to provide context. And in this case, that context is a harmonic underpinning for the notes that we play. And as you get into the video resources that I have, you'll hear that harmonic underpinning very clearly and firmly. I really believe that when we're learning something like playing in upper positions, that it's a complex process. And what we're really trying to do is to break that complex process into easier components. Think about playing in third position. It involves so many things, including reading notes in a way that we haven't read the notes before. It includes shifting. It includes all kinds of different patterns and trying to figure out where the notes are. So what we do here is we eliminate the shifting element. We eliminate the note reading element and really teach the upper positions in a way that we're really focusing on just the element of playing in an upper position and getting our fingers in tune. I really believe that when we're learning something new, it's good to learn, number one, how it feels. I'll call that hand. Then we'll learn how it sounds and how it feels. That's ear to hand. And then thirdly, we learn how it looks, how it sounds, and how it feels. That's eye to ear to hand. And again, this system provides that sequence. In the system, we're going to learn and utilize four finger patterns that we'll use in the finger pattern exercises. Those finger patterns are as follows. First we'll use the three-four finger pattern. The three-four finger pattern is a series of four notes that involve a whole step, another whole step, and a half step. First from the first to second note will be a whole step. From the second to third note, another whole step, and from the third to the fourth note, a half step, therefore, three-four finger pattern. The second finger pattern that we will use is the two-three finger pattern, whole step from the first to second note, half step from the second to third, and whole step from the third to the fourth, the two-three finger pattern. Next, the one-two finger pattern. Whole step from the first to second note, whole step to the third, whole step to the fourth. And finally, the open finger pattern, which is all whole steps. Whole step from the first to the second, whole step from the second to the third, whole step from the third to the fourth. In the next video, we'll discuss the finger pattern exercises and how the sequence works beginning with finding third position.