Improvement

[grelhado]

Hello

I am a young pianist from Portugal.
I am playing Revolutionary Chopin Etude, and I write this topic to ask you some tips to improve the strenght, flexibility, and independence of my 4th finger of left hand. if you know the music, you know that left hand plays extremely fast, and my 4th finger is not so strong and flexible like others.
I just want to ask you for more one tip. how can I study to improve my trills?... I am playing Beethoven 18th sonata, 1st mov, and I have some difficult in trills.

Thanks  

[johnmar78]

hey Hardo, welcome to pS, whu dnt you post your recordings here like i do. your 4th finger is weak, so you need to play the speed that you can control the notes evenly and fortate/slow is the way to go. Otherwise, get inoto some hannon or Czerny execises like Perferct Pitch did for finger strengthening... This is just a start...

Looking forward to your first chopin study....

[hfmadopter]

I agree, play both something with the fourth finger in it and your trills slowly. Not just slow but concentrate on a deliberate action of the fingers used, all the way to the bottom of the key stroke. Make a slow excercise of this. You are waking up muscles that have not been used much yet. Speed will come naturally as strength and control is gained. I can remember my teacher havng me do this many years ago.

[krajcher]

If you have problems with trills, try some inventions by Bach, for example in invention no.4 there are long trills in both hands.
Generally you have to play trills and not be concerned on them.
The better is independence of your hands, the better you play trills. 

[hfmadopter]

If you have problems with trills, try some inventions by Bach, for example in invention no.4 there are long trills in both hands.
Generally you have to play trills and not be concerned on them.
The better is independence of your hands, the better you play trills. 

Yes or Number 2, shorter trills in both hands. Also if there is an Invention in the key of a piece you are working on they can help master the keyboard in preparation ( especially so if it's a Bach piece). At any rate the Inventions will work over your two hands.

I'm working on number 2 myself for the left hand trill in particular but also as a general work out. It's been years snce I played piano up till a month ago, never mind Bachs Inventions.