Shamisen three" or "lowered third" refers to tuning the shamisen to honchoshi and lowering the 3rd string (the string with the highest pitch) down a whole step, so that now the instrument is tuned in fourths, e.g. D, G, C. Instead of having a set tuning, such as on a guitar (i.e. E, A, D, G, B, E) or a violin (i.e. G, D, A, E), the shamisen is tuned according to the register of the singer, or simply to the liking of the player. The shamisen player can tune the shamisen to whatever register desired, so long as the above
Violin technique possible, the amount of adjustment needed may be greatly reduced by training the fingers to fall properly in the first place. That said, a quote widely attributed to Jascha Heifetz goes something like: "I play as many wrong notes as anyone, but I fix them before most people can hear them." The fingers are conventionally numbered 1 (index finger) to 4 (little finger). Especially in instructional editions of violin music, numbers over the notes may indicate which finger to use, with "0" above the note indicating "open" string, or playing on a string without manipulating the pitch using the left