PRACTICE CHALLENGE pt. 3 (Paganini Concerto ORIGINAL KEY)

Practice Challenge: Me trying out the famous Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 1 in its Original Key of E flat Major using the special and incredibly difficult, virtually impossible technique called: "Scordatura" Scodatura is - well, actually perhaps wikipedia might better define it: “Paganini intended the Concerto to be heard in E-flat major: the orchestral parts were written in E-flat, and the solo part was written in D major with instructions for the violin to be tuned a semitone high (a technique known as scordatura) so that it would therefore sound in E-flat. This enables the soloist to achieve effects sounding in E-flat, which would not be possible with normal tuning. An example of this is the opening of the third movement, where the violin plays a rapid downward scale A-G-F♯-E-D, both bowed and pizzicato, which is possible on an open D-string, but extremely difficult in the key of E-flat (i.e. playing B♭-A♭-G-F-E♭) because two strings would be required to play this downward scale, whereas only one string is required to play it in the key of D. In addition, having the orchestra playing in E-flat appears comparatively to mute the sound of the orchestra compared to the solo violin, because the orchestral string section plays less frequently on open strings, with the result that the solo violin part emerges more clearly and brightly from the orchestral accompaniment.” R E S U L T : This was an interesting (and difficult) challenge because I honestly don’t know a single soul in the world who has done this, and now I think I know why. It completely messes with your sense of pitch on the violin - an instrument that doesn’t have frets per note, and one can only rely on open strings and perhaps a few natural harmonics as a basis of orientating oneself. Too bad the entire piece is in the stratosphere most of the time and goes by way too quickly (at performance tempo) to be able to consciously think out each note. Definitely made me thankful to go back to the regular tuning! Much love to you all and thanks for watching! :) If you enjoyed this video, check out these other PRACTICE CHALLENGE videos: Practice Challenge pt. 2 (Paganini Caprice No. 24 in ONE hour) : https://youtu.be/xJMKhi4pQE8 Practice Challenge pt. 1 (Paganini Sauret Cadenza) : https://youtu.be/CKTRr4LH1gs _______________________________________ RAY CHEN w e b s i t e : https://www.raychenviolin.com/ f a c e b o o k : https://www.facebook.com/raychenvioli... i n s t a g r a m : https://www.instagram.com/raychenviolin t w i t t e r : https://twitter.com/raychenviolin