THE 24 CAPRICES

THE 24 CAPRICES FOR CLASSICAL GUITAR

In 1996 I wrote a series of 24 caprices for the Guitar inspired by Nicolo Paganini. Musically they are originals, but the idea to construct them as material to practice diverse techniques, some not so usual, is the same. They are presented here all 24, each with a short explanation by myself.

This is the revised version of Caprice №1. The audio is cleaned up with some ambience added and he footage reworked to match the recent Caprices. Number one's A-part is developed from me exercising scales what I wanted to do in a more musical way, not just technically. The B-part consists of a contrasting slower melody with full accompaniment, meaning a bassline and chord notes.

In №2 there is special training to combine artificial flageolets with bass notes, hit at the same moment.

This version of Caprice №3 has the missing intro restored as well as the missing for bars in the part before the bridge which were edited out for some reason.In this № 3 I wanted to show my love for Jazz and Bossa-Nova. Also I thought I needed some practice on playing an ongoing bass-line against melodic playing, double stops and quick chord-changes.

In this Caprice I use all four fingers of the right-hand to create a tremolo effect. The thumb serves the bass-pattern which is important for the harmonic development of the piece. If you count the left thumb which here serves only as the antagonist for the four fingers of the left hand, then We could say that all ten fingers are in use!

This is a true Caprice, basically constructed around the circle of fifths, meaning every chord is followed by a chord that is five steps up on the scale. It can serve as an etude for arpeggio's. Some of the notes I heard in my head when this came up were so high, I had to make use of artificial flageolets. This is only interrupted by a chromatic scale up and near the end a chromatic scale down the entire range of the classical guitar's neck. The tempo variations during the piece are intended to make it livelier en express emotions.

Caprice №6 is a study of flageolets, both natural and artificial, with or without bass-notes, fretted or open string.

Caprice №7 was fun to compose. It starts with a C#7b9 chord which is not so usual. There's an ascending run of sharps ending on a flat 9 in the melody and then it descends with all flats to a very common chord sequence. A special technique is used to hit the highest notes on the treble E string combined with a C bass note (and later B) on the Bass E string. My classical teacher used to put a lot of effort in making me not fret bass-notes with the thumb of the left hand coming over the edge from the back of the guitar neck. I hope he watches this video too and sees that I do no such thing since I fret the bass-notes with the thumb from the front of the neck. I don't think this particular combination of notes can be played in an other way!

The idea to write 24 caprices for the Guitar is of course inspired by the 24 caprices for violin by Paganini. This №8 was ment to replace J.S. Bach's "Präludium in C" on my repertoire. I really liked the piece but I was never quite satisfied with the transcription for Guitar, since it was keyboard-music. Nevertheless, I integrated some of the techniques used in the transcription in the caprice which is my fantasy of Bach composing a Präludium in modern times. Bach used to group the notes of the arpeggio's as 5:3, I turned that around to 3:5, getting a modern beat and I expanded the chord-types to include some Jazzchording.

Caprice №9 for Classical Guitar features what violinists call "Left hand pizzicato" meaning that You pick some notes with fingers of the fretting hand. Picking open strings is the way to start this practice, leaving the right hand free to do other things like picking artificial flageolets for instance. In this caprice. Left hand pizzicato is combined with left hand fretting. Musically the piece is developed from several themes.

In Caprice №10 there's no special trickery, in fact most of it is played in broken sixth's, a very common classical guitar way of passing the notes. The key it is in, however is not the most comfortable for guitar. C minor gives us its special timbre what I like very much. This Caprice should be played fast and it will prove a bit heavy to play in the lower positions.

Caprice №11 is a flamenco-flavoured Caprice in 5/4 time and some more rythmical oddities. In the intro it might sound like the melody is first slowing down and then speeding up. This is however, not the case. I always wondered when listening to Frank Zappa how it was possible the Vibraphone in unison with an other instrument seemed to do this on a steady beat. The answer is: Tuplets! If on beat 1 there are four (16th) notes, on beat 2 three (a triplet) notes, on beat 3 two (8th) notes on beat 4 one (4th) note, You are slowing down. On beat 5 is actually a note sustaining onto beat 1 of the next bar. from there on the notes become increasingly shorter per beat: a 4th, two 8th's, a triplet and four 16th's. So this sounds like speeding up! Then comes the basical flamenco theme with a repeat, followed by the middle section which is very 'tuplettisated' as FZ would say. There is a final repeat of the flamenco thema with a coda. The basical beat for the theme is inspired by the opening bars of "In a white Room" by Cream. Assumingly Ginger Baker has come up with this rhythm and has stated once that he studied african rhythmns thoroughly, the basical beat here is of African origin.

Caprice №12 is based on regular cowboy guitarplaying technique combined with melodical influences from the old world. If "neo-classical fingerpicking" exsists, it sounds like this.

Caprice №13 is an arppeggio-study. Usually You start picking with the thumb the bass-note from a chord, here I start on the treble-side of the Guitar picking with the little finger.

Caprice №14 is quite a demanding Guitarpiece, mainly due to several stretches to be made with the fingers of the left hand. (or right, if you play lefthanded). Musically there are some tonal twists, making it a true Caprice.)

Caprice №15 is written in 7/8 time

Caprice №16 is remarkable because it is played in a very odd 11/8 time signature. (basicaly three groups of three notes and one of two notes) This is something Frank Zappa experimented with when he was composing on one of the first music-computers. This Caprice is in the Key of E-flat, this isn't the most comfortable key to play on a Guitar but it has a special timbre.

Caprice №17 features al kinds of scales blend together in a musical context: melodic minor, whole step, diminished apeggio, octatonic (whole step, halfstep), a 7/b9 scale and a chromatic descending scale near the ending. All is harmonised with bass-notes and some chording.

Caprice №18 has a Jazz-flavour, the chords are all four voice and it is played in swing time. Technically, it features fretting with the thumb of the left (to get a wider reach) as well as artificial flageolets.

This is one of the most recognizable of the Caprices, I think. It has an undeniable andalucian flavor. I must name Eric Vaarzon here, because the idea for this piece of music came up listening to an on air radio guitarclinic he gave somewhere in 1994 or so. I took his idea of switching the bass note between the first and the last note of the triplets, giving the feeling going against beat at times. Eric told us this is common practice for Flamenco Guitar players. Since Eric talks Dutch, I could pick up a lot from his clinic. He is also the reason this piece is in E-minor because he normally tuned up a whole step and he played in D-minor. Of course I didn't bother to tune up, because then I would find myself tuning the guitar instead of playing along during his masterclass.

This Caprice was constructed as a chord-progression which became increasingly jazzy, it is played in a special arpeggiated style.

When I practiced Caprice №21, my wife asked me if I was playing music for organ. As a matter of fact I was playing music for guitar written by myself, I said. However It is obvious that my fathers influence is very present here in the 'A' part of this piece, which has the form of a trio, there are three lines sounding simultaneously. Many people, even musicians think you can not play like this on a Guitar, only on keyboard. But, we can do this of course.

In some of the Caprices, things are a bit different from what I wrote down nearly 20 years ago. Usually this has to do with the structure of the piece, what parts are repeated and so on. Here in the repeat (which isn't present in the score) I skip a few bars to blend the ending with the beginning of the piece. In other words: The beast eats its own tail. We are near the end of the series of Caprices with only two left, these things happen because as scorpio you are aware of the venom in the tail. №23 won't be to much of a problem for me to play, but №24 requires a lot of barré-playing in an uncomfortable key, what I usually try to avoid. Nevertheless I am practising them both at the moment.

This Caprice has become my favorite for its lyrical content. It shouldn't be played fast and with ornamentation in the melody (which I didn't write out fully.)

The 24th and final Caprice! It is again in odd time, 15/8 with 5 groups of 3 notes (triplets). As a sort of bonus, I added parts of the score in the video which follows the music.

Henri Grünbauer

THE 24 CAPRICES FOR CLASSICAL GUITAR

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