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Thumb Position: Advanced Technique or Fundamental?

We'veall seen it: that look of panic on the face of a young cellist who must, at some point in the music being performed, wrest the thumb from its comfortable station under the neck and use it in most unnatural fashion as another finger stopping the string. It is true that the anatomical design of the hand demonstrates the natural function of the thumb as meeting the fingers in order to grasp. To depress strings on the cello with the side of the thumb, then, represents an unnatural function which must be developed. How can we who teach intercept the fear many students seem to encounter in using the thumb position? Is not the difficulty exaggerated by the tendency