I must give credit to an amazing violin professor, Tuomas Haapanen (he was also the president of the Sibelius Competition for 30 years; sadly, he passed away a few months ago). I met him almost 20 years ago, and he showed me so many tricks for fingering in Paganini’s caprices and concertos. Now, I regret that I haven’t written them out. This is the only trick I remember because it was fun. I don’t know if he meant it for real or just for fun. I also owe him for the old-school shifting technique. It was the time when I was transitioning from playing with a shoulder rest to playing without one, and the shifting technique was one of the cornerstones that I couldn’t figure out.
My teacher and I already call 5th finger to the fourth whenever we are doing an extension when a change of position is too much... now it's going to be either just thumb or 6th finger LOL
Earlier you showed us the high thumb positioning of rabin's left hand, and now you show us this... the prophet of the high thumb! This will help me a lot, thanks! (I see it being used in bach chaconne and other arpeggio passages!)
I heard from James Ehnes that he does this sometimes. I think with the way he positions his thumb, he could do this quite at ease. You guys are amazing!
