Which movement for trills?

[hans]

Hello,

how do you practise trills: Is it movement only with the fingers (up and down with relaxed wrist) or is it movement together with the forearm, i.e. in- an outrotation in the elbowjoint (suppination and pronation)?

Thanks
Hans

[kreso]

When I practice trills, I practice them with a fingers. It is very important that you can play trills (and not only them) with actice fingers, because sound will be better if you play them on this way and not just only using the hand. Of ourse, when your fingers are working fine, then you can add little hand reaction, in Liszt for esxample, when you need massiv sound.
But the most important thing is that fingers can do ywhatever you want!

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

Active fingers is absolutely correct. Each finger should strive for a full, even sound. Raise the fingers for precision and a full sound. The fingers must not be forced to play loud. Practice on soft touch, p to f. Practice slowly first. This is only one way to pracice of course. Even scales, and excersizes are very helpfull.

[hans]

Hello,

it's very interesting. Up to now I thought it's better to use as much as possible of the whole chain of muscles and joints to play and never isolated fingers.

@debussy symbolism
Excuse me, what exactly do you mean with "even sound"? Can you describe it a bit more?

Thanks
Hans

[gorbee natcase]

If it hurts you are doing it wrong. as different peoples hands are different sizes and shapes it deppends on the individual but try to keep your hands excessive movements. start slowly and build up. incorporate 10 mins in your practice schedual to trills it shouldn't take more than a week to master .    There are also trills with turns in etc so with every piece the trill can be of different and structure

[hans]

@gorbee natcase
Thanks, but what are "trills with turns in"?

Hans

[gorbee natcase]

Lets say we are in c with no sharps or flats in.

You see this (tr,.,.,.,.,. ~ )          (  ~  this is a turn
                                                             |
So the trill is say BABABABABABABABAB|CBAB
                          (    trill   ---------------   )( ~ turn)     

So the trill would go up to C roll down to A and finnish on B
If the natural is a sharp then you would roll through sharp or flat respectivly

                                                             
These may help further     
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trill_%28music%29 
https://www.numbera.com/musictheory/theory/notation.aspx
https://members.aol.com/kjvisbest/jsb_ornm.htm 

[debussy symbolism]

Paying close attention to the sound is very important. That no note is louder, faster,etc than intended. The notes have to be full. Practice slowly with precise fingers. Different rhythms. For example start at a slow tempo with 1-2, an emphasis on a beat. Then do 1-2-3(three notes in one beat, emphasis on the beginning beat). Then 1-2-3-4. This not only applies to trills, but to scales, arpeggios and other. Listening to the sound is very important. Hope this helps.

[faulty_damper]

Hello,

how do you practise trills: Is it movement only with the fingers (up and down with relaxed wrist) or is it movement together with the forearm, i.e. in- an outrotation in the elbowjoint (suppination and pronation)?

Thanks
Hans

The latter is a more effective means in trill technique.

How to practice trills: utilize as many muscle groups as possible, primarily using larger ones and  the smaller ones.  This means that the forearm must rotate (pronate and suppinate) and the fingers must move as well.

Another important aspect is which combination of fingers works well with trills.
 On white keys, the most effectice is 2 - 4 because the length of these two fingers are aproximately the same allowing significantly better balance and thus the forearm can rotate with less strain because the hand/forearm alignment is centered.
However, it should be noted that 2 - 3 is more common but also more difficult because they are neighboring fingers.  This means less abilty to utilize forearm rotation and as a result, the fingers must do more of the work. 

 On a white and black key (e.g. C-C#; E-F#), 1 (white) - 3 (black): advantages the thumbs anatomical lower position of the keys.  Fingers 1-2 do not work as well.

On a black and white key (e.g. C#-D), 2 or 3 (black) - 1 (white).

The use of the optimum fingering is the most effective but the fingering should also keyboard geography oriented, i.e. when the hand must be placed in a location that is outside of the optimum placement for certain combinations of fingers, e.g. when the right hand must be placed in the bass end of the keyboard and cannot trill with the optimum as it was in the treble.  Therefore, different fingers should be used to contact the keys.

[hans]

Hello all,

thanks for the interesting answers. And what is the advantage of the so-called "Thalberg's trill"? In german literature I don't find any advice to it.

Greetings
Hans