Trills

[marijn210999]

Hi,

Since a few days I'm working on Bach's Invention No. 4 in D minor. Now the first 18 measures weren't that hard but from measure 19-21 there is a trill in the right hand and in measure 29-33 there is a trill in the left hand. I have now idea how to execute them accurately. Are there exercises for trills because now they sound pretty messed up.

Thanks!

[cwjalex]

i also have a problem with trills and made a thread requesting help.  someone posted this link which isn't bad.

i think they are just hard for us beginners because they aren't a skill that is used very often.  i can play pretty fast using all my fingers but there aren't really many situations where you go back and forth really fast between just two fingers.  i think the only way to get better at trills is just to practice them.

[gr8ape]

First practice doing
1-2-1

then 2-1-2

Do this everyday until it is easy

Then progress to 1-2-1-2 and 2-1-2-1

Again every day until its easy (slow enough for evenness!)

And so on until you can do 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2.....

[cabbynum]

If you can, seperste the fingers by one. Use 1-3, or 2-4, etc. This allows you to get more speed and evenness. Best of luck to ya!

[timothy42b]

If you can, seperste the fingers by one. Use 1-3, or 2-4, etc. This allows you to get more speed and evenness. Best of luck to ya!

I think that one of the reasons this works is because it encourages you to roll the forearm.  Trills do have some forearm rotation, they are not just a finger motion.  You don't want to much, but a beginner may have to exaggerate it to learn it. 

[dima_76557]

@ marijn210999

Is your problem really technical, or is the problem musical (you have no idea how it should sound within the piece)?

For the musical aspect, have a look here:
https://playingbeyondthenotes.com/the-trouble-with-trills-a-furtive-look-into-a-difficult-subject/
This particular invention is mentioned there with a written out version of the trill.

You can also try to locate a good recording of the invention and slow down the sound in any good media player. That may also help. Often, the problem with trills is not really in the playing mechanism itself, but in the distorted sound image of how the trill should be executed within the context. Good luck!

[mjames]

Yeah, i had this problem with one of Chopin's waltzes. technically, I could easily trill with the left hand but it paired up with the other it just fell over into pieces. Someone told me that it could also be a psychological problem, that thinking about the evenness would cause me to mess up. So once you have it down for both hands separately, try not to think about and just go with it. Like you know, go with the flow. I know that sounds like some bogus advice but it honestly worked for me.

[nyiregyhazi]

Hi,

Since a few days I'm working on Bach's Invention No. 4 in D minor. Now the first 18 measures weren't that hard but from measure 19-21 there is a trill in the right hand and in measure 29-33 there is a trill in the left hand. I have now idea how to execute them accurately. Are there exercises for trills because now they sound pretty messed up.

Thanks!

I remember doing this years ago and hating those trills. My technique was awful at the time but I played through this a week or so ago and still felt relatively clueless about how to make those trills work. I can't think of any other trills that notably bother me these days (I'm fine with such ones as those in the Waldstein) but these didn't feel any easier at all. A slow trill feels laboured and pedantic and a fast freer one is too noisy and hard to sustain with control for so long. There's just something very odd about these particular ones. Whatever I did, nothing remotely reached my satisfaction.

[anima55]

You could try slowing down the trill to two notes of the trill against one note in the other hand. This will make the trill sound very slow.  From here you could try three notes of the trill against just one note in the other hand and perhaps move up to four.  By this time, your trill should be sounding a lot better.

Slow practice will really help.