Your Fiddle and Your Left Hand

Step 1: Fingernails

Sorry, ladies: those elegant left hand nails will have to go.

Step 2: Fingers on Tips Please

The fingers of the left hand should stand on their tips (that is why the nails must be short).

Step 3: Thumb and First Finger Work Together

The thumb and first finger should work together as a unit (except when changing position, which comes later). For now, wherever they go, the finger and thumb move together as a unit.

Step 4: Small Gaps and Big Gaps

A crucial technique is the ability to put the second finger in either a backward and forward position.
Here is a small gap between first and second fingers (2nd finger close to first finger).

Step 5: Big Gap

Here is a big gap (2nd finger close to THIRD finger).

Step 6: NO MIDDLE-SIZED GAPS!

So the first finger and thumb travel together, while the second finger can either be a small gap or a big gap away from the first.

There are NO MIDDLE-SIZED GAPS!

Then the third finger goes down after the second.

Step 7: Fourth Finger

The fourth finger goes down after the third. Try to keep it on its tip as far as possible.