Viola Gauntlet, Day 6 (Saturday): Etude day (Kreutzer style) - key of A major / E major / F# minor. A daily practice routine for viola with a play-along backing track: the score scrolls with a playhead, every exercise has a 2-bar count-in. An original 40-bar etude in A major in the style of Kreutzer: string crossings, a shifting sequence, a high passage in 5th position and a circle-of-fifths return. Hard spots first, then the whole etude slow, in dotted rhythms, with a new bowing, and finally at a working tempo over piano chords.
1. Open-string long tones - One unbroken tone per bow, in tune with the drone; near the bridge, rich and slow; no crunch at the bow change (stretch: 12-beat bows with no audible bow change) 2. Drone intonation - Each note rings with the drone - no beats; thirds low, leading note high 3. Fifths across strings - One finger flat across two strings: a pure fifth means the hand frame is right 4. Etude hard spots, slow - Four tricky 2-bar spots from today's etude, three times each, slow and exact 5. Etude in A - slow practice - The whole etude at half speed: every note in tune, every crossing clean 6. Dotted rhythms: bars 9-24 - Long-short, then short-long: the fingers learn to arrive early 7. Etude in A - 4 notes per bow - A new bowing: every beat slurred, crossings rolled smoothly from the elbow 8. Etude in A - working tempo - Play it through as music at q=78: written bowings, no stops (stretch: the whole etude at q=78 without stopping, shifts and crossings clean)
Full week, PDFs and backing tracks: https://www.grahampaasch.com/viola-gauntlet