I'm going to do some more practice on Variation 1 today.

Okay, I suspect that Robert is going to be the only reader interested in this post. Let me say from the outset that I am not seeking to prove you wrong Rob, I'm just looking at this interesting piece that I've watched quite a few people finger in different ways with success. There obviously isn't one correct answer to how to finger it.

You can see, on this printed edition, that someone has already made a few fingering and positional 'suggestions'. In all likelihood this was a music editor and not Paganini. Though, as Robert would say, I could be wrong.  

Yesterday Robert posted a copy with fingerings written on it.

The writing looks like either Robert's or mine. If I was responsible, it would be in my very early days of working out a fingering system and it is certainly NOT the fingerings I have memorized. These days I have a very different solution, but I'm not going to write it out on this post because that would look like I was giving the correct answer. I don't believe that my fingering would necessarily work for everyone.

I started studying this piece on March 31st of this year - exactly nine months ago. Okay, I've had interruptions, but that time has been well spent and I've learnt quite a lot. As a jazz musician, one of the first things I did was to check out the chords. They're what you'd expect but I was interested to see bar 9 (I'm not counting the repeat). It is made up of the notes G# B D and F (each note played twice in descending order). This is a G# diminished chord that suggests the sound of E7b9. Diminished chords are, by their structure, very symmetrical. They pop up a lot in the improvised music that I love to play, so I think I worked out quite a unique (for Classical musicians), and easy, way to play it.

For anyone who might be interested, and might not know too much about chords, here is the chord progression:

||Am |E |Am |E ||A |Dm |G |C |E7b9 |Am |Bdim E |Am ||

That 11th. bar could also just be defined as E7b9 for the whole bar.

Well, I'd better go and do some practice. I'll make a recording if things go well.

Ciao tutti.