trrrrills

[darkrev]

I need some help.  In all my pieces, whenever I get to a trill, my hands and fingers would naturally tense up and that ruins the flow of my trills.  I have worked very hard on the ornaments for so long now and it gets frustrating to get stuck everytime.  Does anyone have any advice for me in terms of relaxation while playing trills or how to practice the trills?  thanks a lot

[dinosaurtales]

this is going to sound weird, but it worked for me.  I, too, would try to play the trills like they were "notes" and I'd get all tensed up.  My teacher said I was working too hard. 

let your hand go floppy, all loosy-goosy, limp.  then set your fingers on the keyboard and just sort of wiggle two of them like 2 and 3 really loose like.  It'll sound like crap at first, but the trick was to get used to letting your hand and fingers go limp to do the trills.  Keep messing with it and the balance will click.

[fuel925]

I also have some trouble with trills, so this advice will come in handy, thanks!

[sznitzeln]

I agree on the loose-thing...
I think a pretty nice excercise is to first learn to trill for "a few bars"...
That helped me with ornaments. When doing that you can also try to use minimal rotation of the forearm as an aid..
I think its much easier to trill with fingers 1,3 than 2,3 ...because that allows for greater help from the rotational movement of the forearm... infact I think you can do the most of the job with this action.
And for ornaments I think its good to in advance determine exactly how you are going to do the trill... and then increase the speed... look for the feeling you get when playing 2 notes in the fastes possible succession...
And first play the first 2 notes, then 3 , etc (Atleast thats a good excercise for me).

Ah, and there are different rules for how to actually play the trill... in Mozart you start on the bottom note, but in Bach on the top note...
And I think Bach also has rules for how long the trill should be... but I am not sure.

Good luck

/Jacob

[r.schaefer]

Ah, and there are different rules for how to actually play the trill... in Mozart you start on the bottom note, but in Bach on the top note...
And I think Bach also has rules for how long the trill should be... but I am not sure.

Good luck

/Jacob

Hm, my teacher tought me that Mozarts trills start on the top note, too.

[aquariuswb]

Hm, my teacher tought me that Mozarts trills start on the top note, too.

I'm with you here. I always thought that if a "trill symbol" (~~ or whatever) is above a single note, you ALWAYS start with the note above the written one, and trill. If you are meant to start with the bottom note, I am under the impression that it would be indicated somehow, perhaps with a grace note just before the trill of the same note (i.e. if the trill is between a B and a C, the "trill sign" will be above the written B, and if you are meant to start the trill on the B, a B grace note would appear just before the trill).

Can anybody clear this up? Does a "~~" (trill symbol) ALWAYS mean trill with the note above that which is written, starting on the higher pitch?

[galonia]

Ah, my teacher taught me there is never an ALWAYS rule for ornaments - she said there are rules, but if it sounds bad, it's still wrong.

I think there are guidelines as to which note a trill starts on, but your ear and taste should be the ultimate guide.

As to the original post - when you are playing trills in one hand, concentrate on what you are playing in the other hand instead of worrying about the trill.  The other thing I find helps is to emphasize the first note of an ornament and let the other notes just flow from that.  If it's a long trill, you may have to pick a few notes to emphasize (e.g. every 8 or 6 or whatever is sensible).

[lostinidlewonder]

With trills i think it is important to get a good sense of what is happening when two notes just play together. For instance. If we just look at a trill which goes like: DC#D
you could master that fast i am sure, without error or problem. What if now i ask for you to play a trill that goes one longer(3 D's).
DC#DC#D

do you sense playing this length as easily as you sensed playing the previous one? The touch that you achieve playing the first DC#D should be very simple, anyone can do that and then play all over the keyboard in those groups. Then you have to also develop your ability to do with the same ease, larger groups. So start with 3D's, then 4D's 5 6 how ever many.

You will find that as you increase the length of a trill it becomes broken down into smaller groups. For instance 6D's in the above example could be percieved as 2 groups of 3D's, or 3 2Ds. Whatever the music encourages. Trills are a tool of music like arpeggios, you should treat it as a seperate study I believe.

[jlh]

It has more to do with the period of music you're playing than anything.  Different conventions were in place in earlier Baroque and Classical music than were in place for Romantic and later music.  It will not always be indicated whether you should play the top note first or the principle note first -- you're expected to know which to play first.  For instance, a trill in Mozart and a trill in Chopin both look the same ("~") but with Mozart you will play the top note first and Chopin's trills start with the principle note.

As far as developing the fingers to play trills, I agree that you should not usually think of trills as actual notes (granted, a trill usually involves at least 4 notes and some composers' pieces sound better when the trill is metered), but instead as a flutter type of effect.  The good thing about practicing trills for finger technique is that you can practice them ANYWHERE.  If you're idle for any amount of time, practice trilling on a bench or your lap.