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In the Tchaikovsky Concerto,
you get a chance, right away,
to show all the range of the four strings
of the violin.
So take advantage of it.
You don't have to give your most sound
right away.
In fact, you shouldn't because it's only
piano and you have a long way to go but
you can show what the four different
strings sound like.
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You wanna
save yourself
a little cushion.
You're not fortissimo, you're not
pianissimo.
It should be comfortable but the sound
should be expressive, and
should develop right away.
Now, the biggest fault I usually hear with
this concerto is just a boring first bow.
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There the sound starts out
fairly intense but nothing happens.
Instead, imagine yourself responding to
the accompaniment.
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So these half-steps, these repeated
half-steps, you're turning them around.
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Now, what also happens with
this opening is that here, with so
many bow changes, it ends up sounding,
again, fragmented.
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That's way
too many stops.
My interest is already waning.
It's it's one line down.
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Now, from the main theme,
you have to gradually
wake up the sound, so
it doesn't start big.
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Here it's again marked
dolce, so it's still,
still just gradually getting
excited but when that happens,
do it with the articulation.
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So these rhythms,
really tight, really snappy,
and the the chromatic
scale that you have up to
rehearsal A should be exciting.
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Very vibrant,
the double-stops
here.
It's still a chance to sing not to press
but to, to let the violin ring.
It's a nice open key.
Now when the notes get quicker and they're
slurred,
you have to bring in some great left hand
articulation.
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That way you can be
smooth with the bow but
the notes will still come out.
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And especially when the bow
changes are in slightly strange places.
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That's why it's important to practice
those etudes with all the different bowing
patterns,
that the notes come out absolutely evenly
even though
the bow may be changing in different
places.
Right where we just arrived at rehearsal
B, I'd like to share my fingering there.
I like to stay in a first position hand
frame for the first bow.
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Normally, I don't like to do too much
sliding around on the half steps in these
chromatic passages
because the articulation is usually weaker
but if you're
able to articulate it with your left hand,
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rather
than
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then I think it's worth it to stay
in the first position.
The next bow
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and ending on a strong finger.
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Now coming down from here,
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I like to do what's usually not
recommended, which is to add extra string
crossings and I do that for articulation
and
to help me get down to position.
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So,
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I like the brilliance that
the extra open strings give me,
and then again with these slurs,
lots of left hand articulation.
Something like this is great with dotted
rhythms to even it out.
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And you don't have to stop there,
with just a pattern of two,
you can do one long, and two short.
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And
then you change where the long note is.
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Of course,
that can continue as long as you'd like
but
the important thing is to keep the same
bowings that you have.
Don't change the bowing of a passage to
neatly fit the short long pattern that
you're doing.
Keep the same bowing and deal with the
difficulties.
You'll find that it's very even after
that.
Now when you get to the second theme,
you'll want to,
even though it's marked molto espressivo,
you'll want to save something.
This is kind of a middle range.
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So the vibrato
needn't call
attention to itself.
You want to save something for the, the
top register.
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And of course,
the great sound on the G string,
which closes out the second theme.
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