What's this?

 Okay, I got a comment on my last blog that criticizes me on a few levels.

This is all about my post on learning to play Paganini's 24th Caprice.  The variation I advised my young friend about, and Robert accuses me of misleading him, was Variation 1. Robert (the quite a few different things) posted a video, a little while back, of himself attempting to play the first four bars. It was grossly out of tune - he even got his major and minor intervals in the arpeggios confused. Obviously studying the other caprices hadn't worked for him! Robert (the quite a few different things) is certainly not on his way to preparing a successful performance of this piece. In Paganini's idea of 'the one scale on the violin' there are only four octave fingerings available on the violin for a major scale. This piece of news is actually an undebatable fact. In fact, there are are only 7 possible fingerings that major, Dorian minor, natural minor, dominant 7th, Locrian and two other scales (also referred to as modes) are made up of. Okay, I admit that this one scale doesn't lay out all the notes for a chromatic scale, a diminished scale or, say, a diminished whole tone scale. There are other altered scales that require finger adjustments but the basic principle still applies.

So, if there are only four major fingerings when moving across the fingerboard, this makes the rule that there only four arpeggio fingerings when moving across the fingerboard - 1 3 1 4,  2 4 2 1,  3 1 3 2,  4 2 4 3 (this obviously doesn't account for stretched fingerings). When moving up the fingerboard, options will be largely controlled by what position the arpeggio is in (root position 1 3 5, first inversion 3 5 1, or second inversion 5 1 3). Obviously, the same applies to minor arpeggios. 

Okay, if you're taking notes, this means that (outside of stretching to a 'harder to get' note) there are 7 arpeggio fingerings to choose from. I didn't need the other 23 caprices to figure that out! Instead I used logic, based on nearly 62 years of studying (yes, studying) music.

Let's look at the arpeggio in the first bar of Variation 1 (above). I have four fingers to choose for playing the first note (A). Finger 1 on the E string is a good choice because, with a little stretch, I can use a fingering of 1 3 4 to grab the first three notes and and then head back down again - five notes done! The last three are easy in 1st position, and I have an open E to set me up. I could also possibly go for the A up on the A string and use 3 1 3. I guess I could do the same thing using 4 2 4. I can't see much sense in starting on the second finger, but maybe it works for you?

Hey, once you've sorted out your fingerings, you've got to play over these things many, many, many times. There is no shortcut that I know of and Robert's video attempt to play this variation seems to prove that beyond a doubt.

I'm going to leave it there for tonight. Maybe next time I'll talk about Paganini's one position on the violin? There again, maybe I'll keep it to myself and let you listen to advice from chaps like Robert.

Ciao tutti.