Paganini Caprice 16 - Best Performance Possible

April 27, 2004 at 08:54 PM · big hands and a good bow arm help!

Seriously...having not studied this Caprice formally yet I don't have any suggestions.

April 28, 2004 at 08:55 AM · cool! I got the big hand part down ^_^

Anything else? :D

April 28, 2004 at 08:36 AM · Practise it slowly at the lower half of the bow. It's quite difficult to play it like this, but once you can make it, it's quite easy to play it normally. Try also practising it with reverse bowings. You can apply also some of the Kreutzer Nr. 2 bowings. It becomes tricky, but it's worth it.

Practise it also extremely slowly and listen to intonation. It's very difficult to play this caprice completely in tune.

Kreutzer 7 (I'm not sure about the number, the most used martele -etude) is very useful.

On the other hand you must remember it's music and not just an etude. It mustn't sound like one.

Good luck!

Lauri

April 28, 2004 at 09:55 AM · Greetings,

the trick (well, one of them) is coordination in the sense that the bow will arrive at the next string efre te left hand is fully prepared. Thus, one of the most important practice methods is to learn it as a double stopping exercise so that the fingers learn to anticipate what is going to happe next.

A common mistake in practice this and similar kinds of pieces is that although it requires a lot of slow work the kind of mucular use shouldbe that of a fats tempo. So, for example, make sure you are using the very light left hand finger pressure that you would use at full speed.

When you are shiftng and changing position practice the shift as a double stop so that the whole hand really does move into the new position , although in performanc eit will not be exactly like this.

Since you have big hands don"t hesitate to use the Pagini technique of staying in one position and playing in another. In this caprice there are many instance when the hand can stay in 3rd position and the finger play in fourth.

The Galamian fingerings are probably the most efifcient to learn given the time constraints and they are perfectly musical. The fingerings and bowings in the urtext edition are interesting but more personlized and awkward. I have yet to make up my mind if they are actually better than Galamian"s.

Cheers,

Buri

April 28, 2004 at 11:20 PM · thougth none of the paganini caprices are easy...this one is the least difficult in my opinion...the only thing that is really tough is the tenths even at a slow tempo. Playing double stops is a great idea as Buri pointed out. At a slow tempo, make sure that when you play every note, the previous note should still be held down by the fingers. This along with playing double stops for prestine intonation will really polish up the technical side of the caprice

April 29, 2004 at 01:18 AM · the bowing is whats difficult when you speed it up, for me at least, you need to be very connected and know your arm levels backwards and fowards.

May 5, 2004 at 09:13 PM · Honestly, to kind of "show off" technique, like all of the capriccios, you should really play the 5th capriccio. My personal favorite and it is fairly easier than it sounds. Play the agitato FAST. And the scales..Good luck ;)

May 6, 2004 at 05:45 AM · Ick, well, being that the exam is next week...its too late to switch to No. 5 o_O

Bach would probably suffice as a show off piece ^_^