jay pettitt on 1/10/2006 at 19:25
Look who's talking.
Though the thing with Pagganini is over-played. The pieces are 'advanced' rather than omg. Exceptional in their day perhaps; certainly revolutionary and outlandish - but technically not beyond a reasonably competant proponent.
Lurox on 1/10/2006 at 21:40
Exceptional in their day ?
Paganini is still considered the best violin virtuoso, and the 24th caprice wasn't adapted for guitar until recently (it was thought impossible). But I'd agree for one thing : there's many harder pieces than the 24th caprice.
37637598 on 2/10/2006 at 00:23
EASY!
Fingernail on 2/10/2006 at 10:10
Yeah, it's not actually that hard. She must find it pretty hard with such small hands, though. I'm gifted with a rather larger reach.
Check out Kazuhito Yamashita. There aren't really any decent videos of him doing the amazing stuff but there are recordings of Pictures at an Exhibition, the Firebird by Stravinsky and the New World Symphony, if you dig into filesharing clients enough. None of those records are available in the West anymore.
It's not just technically amazing, it is also very well played and beautiful. There are some videos of him playing some slower pieces somewhere.
For some real virtuosity regardless of instrument, check out Boris Berezohvsky or whatever he's called, playing Liszt's 12 Etudes in one sitting. Google video I think. The Mazeppa is just amazing. Now that shit is difficult.
FUN FACT: Paganini also played guitar and wrote loads of pieces for it, he just never performed on it in public.
Para?noid on 2/10/2006 at 10:37
Personally, I always thought the hardest thing on guitar were repeating phrases that you have to kind of "hold on to". A grand example of that would be this riff played by Fripp at the start of King Crimson's "Frame by Frame":
<pre font="Courier New">
e|--------------|
B|--------------|
G|--------------|
D|-----4-6-4----|
A|-4-7-------7--|
E|--------------|
</pre>
I mean, the thing is with that Caprice is that the events and sections are always changing which give your hands time to "refresh" and keep going, moving into different positions. When you've got to hold something really fast down like the example above your brain starts to wander and your hands slow down.
Unless of course you aren't shit
jay pettitt on 2/10/2006 at 20:46
Dude, your guitar is upside down.
Para?noid on 2/10/2006 at 21:56
im left handed
Para?noid on 3/10/2006 at 04:32
Actually I was joking, you've clearly never looked at tab and you've you've never heard that riff
unless you're left-handed in which case return to your fucking folk stylings you oh so humble dumb twat
Angel Dust on 3/10/2006 at 09:16
Quote Posted by Para?noid
Personally, I always thought the hardest thing on guitar were repeating phrases that you have to kind of "hold on to". A grand example of that would be this riff played by Fripp at the start of King Crimson's "Frame by Frame":
<pre font="Courier New">
e|--------------|
B|--------------|
G|--------------|
D|-----4-6-4----|
A|-4-7-------7--|
E|--------------|
</pre>
I mean, the thing is with that Caprice is that the events and sections are always changing which give your hands time to "refresh" and keep going, moving into different positions. When you've got to hold something really fast down like the example above your brain starts to wander and your hands slow down.
Unless of course you aren't shit
The hardest part of that lick though is that it is 6 notes long but played as sixteenths instead of the usual sextuplets. So the lick falls on a different place in the beat as you repeat it until it eventually aligns itself up again after 3 bars.
But I can see what you mean about the repeating factor, for me its not that my brain wanders but my hand cramps up depending on the lick. Of course that just because I'm shit and don't have the lick down so my hand is all tense when I play it.
However moving your hand into to different positions is not necessarily easier either especially if string skipping and/or large posistion shifts are involved. Which is why something like this Caprice here is harder than a linear shred fest ala Malmsteen. Its not the speed but the complexity of the runs.
