One of the biggest problem areas in scales are the string crossings. It’s the perfect opportunity for the right hand to get tripped up. There’s certainly things we can do to help out, the very first being trying to avoid bad string crossings. In the end, however, you have to practice both good and bad crossings. Lessons Learned from Shifting One of the greatest ways to practice a left hand shift is to play one position, then move quickly to the new position and stop. Just focusing on the shift like this takes the pressure of of playing the follow passage. This is a form of stop/go practice. We can do the same for practice string crossings. Play a burst of notes on one string, then prepare the next finger on the lower or higher string.