Tremolos in Beethoven Op. 2 No. 2

[mozart404]

I've gotten decent at left hand tremolos with octaves, but in this sonata there are long sections like this where you perform a tremolo on a chord:



It's just a complete nightmare, sometimes only finger 3 will sound a note, sometimes only 5. But I can't get 3 and 5 to work together. How do I fix this?

[nyiregyhazi]

I've gotten decent at left hand tremolos with octaves, but in this sonata there are long sections like this where you perform a tremolo on a chord:



It's just a complete nightmare, sometimes only finger 3 will sound a note, sometimes only 5. But I can't get 3 and 5 to work together. How do I fix this?
[/quote

Two possibilities. Either your arm is locked tight and you're shutting down free movement of the fingers. If so, you need to start rotating, to free the blockages. However, you may also be rotating with floppy fingers. If so, you need to actually move them. However much you should rotate, the fingers must be expanding out through the key. Either stiffly held or floppy finger are useless. If the key doesn't go down, you didn't cut through it with adequate positivity in the motion.

[mohab95]

Work on these tremolos in a very very slow tempo for 3 days. Observe keenly your hand/arm movements. Watch out for unnecessary tension and eliminate them until you feel very comfortable playing them. Gradually speed up on your 3rd day and take off from there. 

[dima_76557]

I've gotten decent at left hand tremolos with octaves, but in this sonata there are long sections like this where you perform a tremolo on a chord:

[image]

It's just a complete nightmare, sometimes only finger 3 will sound a note, sometimes only 5. But I can't get 3 and 5 to work together. How do I fix this?

You should be able to play simple trills of manageable intervals between ANY finger combination. That's really all there is to it. Even in a "chord trill", you consciously manage/control one finger of the chord combination only and let the other "chord fingers" simply accompany the main one without worrying too much about them.