Trills

[pianorama]

I am wondering if anyone could give me any advice on how to execute trills quicker. In Sonatina in G major, Opus36, no. 5, 1st movement on bar 23 and 73 there is a magnificantly fast trill, but when I try to play it, I can't do it fast enough and it sounds like... well you don't want to know how bad it sounds. Any advice? Oh, and the song is by Clementi.

           Thanks in advance

                        Lowell

[mattm]

play it very slowly to start, then add speed later, a lot later from now.  at least, thats how ive always tackled little problem passages like that.   

[jamie_liszt]

I dont know if its a 4-5 trill or 2-3 but if i had a choice i would use fingers 1-3 (thumb and middle finger) dont use the tip of the thumb, i use the outter side down a bit to hit the note and thrust down harder with my 3rd finger, but this works for me, i cant explain exactly how i do it but it works for me. try hanon, hanon the virtuoso pianist has some trill preparation exercises.

EDIT: i found out the same way but finger 1 and 2 work good to.

[avetma]

I dont know what piece is it, but when I have some fast trills (for example c-d-c-d-...) in right hand I use:

1-3-1-2-1-3-1-2...

[pianorama]

play it very slowly to start, then add speed later, a lot later from now.  at least, thats how ive always tackled little problem passages like that.   

Thank for trying to help, but the problem is, even when I try it like that first, I still can't do it fast enough.

I dont know if its a 4-5 trill or 2-3

It is a 2-3 trill on F# and E. I'm glad it's not 4-5 because I really don't like those trills.

[pianorama]

Oh, and I have a digital piano where you can play something slowly, then have the piano play it back, but much faster than before. The left hand is doing A, C#, and G with triplet eighth note while you do the trill. I have tried doing this in slow motion, but no matter how many variations I try, it still doesn't sound the way it should when I digitally speed it up. HELP ME BEFORE I GO CRAZY!

[luposolitario]

You may try this: https://members.aol.com/chang8828/techniqueIII.htm(section 3)
 and https://members.aol.com/mccc8888/chapter1_2.htm (section 9-11)
but I don't know if it works...

[pianorama]

Wow. I read almost everything in both pages, and I maybe understood 1 or 2 words. Do those pages come in real English?

[luposolitario]

Maybe you have to read the previous sections of the book to understand them.

[freakofnature]

Have you tried to break the trill down in it's single movements??? Maybe you could try to play only F#-E (3-2) as fast as possible, then E-F# (2-3) and finally put it all together. I think the problem is not the 2-3-movement, but the 3-2 movement (at least I am much slower in that direction). So, if you've found the harder part of it, practise especially this movement... I think that's the main thought of what's written in Chang's book...

[princessdecadence]

I dont know what piece is it, but when I have some fast trills (for example c-d-c-d-...) in right hand I use:

1-3-1-2-1-3-1-2...

That's strange - wouldn't that make it harder to play with that fingering? I use 2-3-2-3

I don't like 4-5 trills either. 2-3 is best for me.

[jamie_liszt]

i remember chopin polonaise op 53 was a b*tch to learn for me in terms of the 4-5 trills, but after about 1 week of practise 20 minutes a day on that one part it became good, it becomes easy, its nothing now. so its all a matter of practice.

[pianorama]

That's strange - wouldn't that make it harder to play with that fingering? I use 2-3-2-3

I don't like 4-5 trills either. 2-3 is best for me.

That is exactly how I feel. I tried the 1-3-1-2-1-3-1 and all it did was slow me down. And I can do really short trills quite fast, but after 4 or 5 notes I slow down. The trill lasts for the entire bar.