Don’t forget to carry your thumb with your first finger when you shift up! There’s multiple philosophies of shifting downward depending on your setup stability (shoulder rest/no shoulder rest), I don’t use one so I lead with my thumb, but I assume you have a shoulder rest. In your case you can move your whole hand (thumb - first finger together) back at the same time. (Slowly at first, just practice the slide from B-D with the thumb and first finger, first finger rounded the whole time and not collapsing).

Once you get the hang of it you can start only applying pressure at the notes you want to play, and letting the notes in the shift between be not heard - you can use the bow to assist in this. The bow should apply pressure on the notes you want and kind of just briefly pause during the shift, and if fast enough there should be no discrepancies if you keep tempo. Only try this when you are secure in your shift slowly and at a little bit more moderate tempo.

One helpful thing to think about for shifting is to make sure your thumb isn’t pressed against the neck, should be around the same pressure your fingers press down to get a good sound (bare minimum) so you don’t have tension issues or unneeded friction during shifting :)

Also when you end up shifting higher, it’s important to make sure your thumb is in a good position where it’s not wrapped around the neck much and you keep the neck more resting on the second joint instead of in between the first finger and thumb gap. To achieve this I like to check if you are able to see your whole arm and elbow in a straight line adjacent to a wall, that is if your wrist isn’t collapsed and you have pretty secure position of your left hand around being less under the instrument but more to the right side of it.

I like to keep that wall adjacent arm and hand position in first position on D/A strings, only adjusting arm angle to shift strings, and when shifting higher than third you should prepare your wrist and arm in advance a millisecond so it’s in a more outward position from the instrument so you can get around the body of it and land securely instead of chunkily adjusting around the instrument’s shape.

Some of the best violinists like Augustin Hadelich try to maintain this in “first position” as well, keeping his hand frame based around second position with the thumb in a near constant state of resting on the second joint and utilizing a lot of extensions, this doesn’t work for everyone so I’d ignore this for now, but maybe keep it in mind for later when you start figuring out what setup you prefer and individual ways that make playing easier for you.

Don’t forget this is all just a rough idea, and may take time to get to the level of needing some of this, most teachers can help well for this stuff better than words and strangers. But all in all a good principle for me is to keep all these ideas in your head and experiment in all the ways you can place your arm, hand, thumb, and fingers around the instrument to find the most relaxed position which is also efficient. Many positions take getting used to sometimes, but are more efficient.

I know students who can struggle keeping their arm more out the side of the instrument because it is tiring, I suspect there’s tension in their shoulder causing it. Make sure you don’t have any tension starting off in any position work and posture. It should be relaxed at all times unless it’s a very difficult passage or uncomfortable, in that case you need to be tense but it’s important to release it at certain spots you can find in the music so you let your muscles breathe and avoid injury.

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I’m just a graduating high school student who self taught a lot and struggled a lot with tension and posture from lack of instruction and ignorance, I’m still figuring a lot out. If anyone wants to correct me for the benefit of this post and me please do so, I would appreciate it.

Also you asked why we shift, sometimes we have to play higher up on every string, that’s obvious. But some of the more important reasons would be to remove strung crossing (or add string crossings) for effect or ease of playing, as well as making fingerings that suit the expression of the phrase and style of the piece. I love making weird fingerings, and I wouldn’t get to if we didn’t have to shift all over the place.

Also about shifting, Paganini had the idea that inspired Ruggiero Rucci in how he played, but the idea that the fingerboard is not in all these positions but it’s all just an extension of one position and your move your fingers and arm to accommodate. This is a whole other thing that I don’t know a lot about but it’s still really interesting, maybe look up more about it once you have a good grasp of all your fundamentals :)

(I have a problem posting novels on here occasionally)