There are several urban legends surrounding Paganini, such as the legend that he sold his soul to the devil so that he would be able to play the violin with such fiery virtuosity. Having learned a few of his pieces I can certainly see how such a transaction might have led to the devilishly difficult pieces for which he is known. Caprice 16 is one such piece. My personal favorite of his famous 24 Caprices, Caprice 16 is tour de force of scalar passages, arpeggios, string skipping and rapid position shifting.
You may have noticed that I did a lesson a while back on this piece. I have since re-learned it and arrived at fingerings that I think work better compared to those I used in my previous Caprice 16 lesson.
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Playing With The Devil - Paganini Caprice 16, Part 1
I have certainly been all over the map lately with my guitar playing. From Bach to Heitor Villa Lobos to Paganini, I never know who will inspire me from one day to the next. Hopefully you are not getting tired of my seemingly endless series of classical music based lessons. Having spent a lot of time developing technique, I can honestly say that classical music is one of the most sure fired ways to hone guitar technique. And in the realm of classical music, there is no workout quite like Paganini. His pieces are a boot camp in technical brutality!
Above is the tab for measures 1-6. Here are some tips:
Even though the piece is written out in straight 16th notes, do not play
this piece with metronome precision. Find some recordings of violinists and
notice how they let the piece breath. Insert pauses to your liking.
Do not try and play this piece at ludicrous speed. It simply does not lend
itself to16th notes at 220 BPM. Most violinists play it around 130-140 BPM
and my recording is done at tempos similar to those played by violinists.
Experiment with fingerings! There is tab available online for this piece
but so far I have yet to come across a version with fingerings I like. I had
to go through a lot of trial and error before I came across fingerings that
worked well for me. You may not like my fingerings (especially the string
skipping parts) so do what works for you!
Note: My audio recording contains the entire piece. The MIDI
contains just the first 6 measures.
Lessons
