Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este: TREMOLOS

[ilovemusic]

This is one of my favourite pieces, and I would like to be able to play it someday. The pieces is loaded with tremolos, giving a beautiful colouring. I would really like to learn to play nice Pianississimo tremolo's, and create the water that it should depict. (Jorge Bolet is my favourite player of this pieces). At the moment the resulting sound is at least mF.

I have been working on those tremolos for maybe 2 years, and have improved significantly over time. I practise on them every day for maybe 5-10 minutes, until I go on to play my other pieces. I have great diffuciulty getting them the be very soft, fast and light. Has anyone got experience playing these (or other) tremolos ?

My teacher advocates playing them from the fingers, but I have also read recommendations to play them from the wrist. Or is it a combination ? I play the melody (if you now the pieces) by using arm weigth, while my thumb and index keep on playin the trill. Should I increase the amount of time I invest practising tremolos, or be patient for several more years ( :-( ).

I practise the right arm tremolo usually as follows (for instance E# G# A# C#):

play trills in triples

2    1    2
5353535353

212121212121
5    3    5    3


Also in triplets:

121212
353535

and

212121
353535


and then the actual tremolo

13131
25252


Recently, I can focus on relaxation in my hand (first it found it so hard that is was impossible. ). (Although this does not speed things up).

does any body have any ideas ? Hints ? Tips ? Advice ? Experiences ? Help ?



Joost

[ilovemusic]

No one ? 

[nicco]

well...it pretty much looks like you have a solution already, i dont see why you wanna change that?

[ilovemusic]

well...it pretty much looks like you have a solution already, i dont see why you wanna change that?

But it takes a lot of time to acquire the speed/control I need to play the piece: years ! Sometimes, people have a smarter/better approach. The approach above was actually already suggested as a way to practise thirds etude (by Marik), for which it works really well.

Ah well, this kind of technique (trills/tremolos) probably just take time, because the nerve system needs to develop or something. Sad.


Thanks for the reply Nicco !


Joost