Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum New Music - Trials and Joys of Trills!

The ABF recital is a great place to pick up new stuff, whether you're looking for it, or whether you're not. Truth is, you'll sooner or later succumb to the temptation of buying stuff that grabs you, and ther's plenty in there to do just that.
I'd been trying to get a decent play-list of varied stuff that I've played from the present and past when, at the last recital, I picked up on a tune from PianogrlNW (Ellen) which grabbed my undivided.
It's not the first time she's done this on me!

So, back on the treadmill I go!
Hammering a new tune into this rapidly shrinking brain o' mine is a thankless task at times, but once I start, I cannot let go.
The harmonics and sheer beauty of this period- music was to be mine.
It occupies time, late at night when hopefully, more is able to be absorbed.
Beer helps enormously.
Scarlatti's Sonata in E is the music, and I quickly found my nemesis
Trills! Like bl**dy little trolls they were, their a*ses of which needed kicking.

The pros make such a great job of 'em, and the music almost lives or dies depending on how you handle 'em. So off I starts on a Voyage of Discovery!
Discovery? Felt like I was on the Titanic on it's way down.

The worst thing was these bleedin' trills were spelt out for you, written in stone. For some reason this caused me great difficulty.

Anyway, I've made a little substitution to achieve a much better sounding result for me playing the thing, and the joy of the piece is now undiminished.

Who else has trouble with trills? As writ? Hands up, guys . . .

I too learn from others here just by watching and listening. I suppose I'm both an aural learner and a visual learner, though both are important.

As for learning trills, I too have experimented with my own, by ear and off the cuff, version of trills, and where in my arraignment they might fit in or sound good. If it sounds good to me, I'll keep working on it in some form or fashion, and incorporate it into the tune, whether the trill is two notes that are a half step apart or a whole step, or even a third, fourth or fifth apart, or even an octave trill.

As for having trouble, I have trouble with everything until I figure out what works best for me.

I suppose you could figure out what fingers work best, along with the technique, and hand/wrist position.

I came across this YT video from Robert Estrin about playing trills. He does more talking than demonstrating, but he does do some demonstration toward the end of the video. Robert Estrin discussing playing piano trills...

Have fun with the trills, Peter!

Rick

Nahre Sol on trills:

I pretty much have to use 2-3 for trills. My 68 year old hands can't adjust to using other fingers. So I adjust the fingering (and sometimes the music!) so that I can use 2-3.

Sam

Do check this video out. You need to get used to shifting your weight from one finger to the next and then back. Keep a relaxed wrist while doing so. I thought it was impossible to improve my trills initially but this really helped. I think a medium speed trill should certainly be possible, not so sure about fast trills.

I've been learning this mozart sonata. 2nd movement is super confusing how to play all the turns and trills. There even appears to be different versions of it.



I used to think 2-3 was the best fingering for trills but when I got more advanced I found that 1-3 is often better. It depends on the passage however but yes I would pick the best fingering with each passage rather than trying to restrict to only the 2-3.

I think the other thing to help is to play baroque and classical music. Once you have mastered it in one piece, they are often much easier. You however always have the impossible ones. Something like this one, Rameau, I could only do by slowing down the piece (this is one option to make it easier if you struggle - as some trills when you try to play faster it get exponentially hard).



As everything with piano - things improve with practice. Good luck!

Interesting. At least at my current level of technique, the easiest for me are either 1-3 or 1-4.

1-3 is also my most comfortable—. But I’ve learned I am sometimes forced to use other fingers (such as the dreaded 4-5)

I have always found double trills a very effective exercise on the silent Virgil Practice Clavier. There are only five finger combinations for each hand and each combination has three possible striking sequences - alternating, left-right and inside-outside. Use any notes and run through the lot every day, done it for many years, only takes a few minutes. I don't use trills per se much in improvising as I don't find their sound very interesting, but I do use heaps of non-standard double notes for various musical purposes.

And, just to throw in a spanner or two, there's the pedal . . . .kinda has a strange effect at times.
Depress it and you get this marvellous singing voice floating around. But with trills? One must tbe judicious!

Over the years I've seen different scores. Some unusual ones include the Bach "Musical Offering" BWV1079 to the emperor of Prussia. It's a set of variations for keyboard. Some pieces you see 1 clef on the left and another clef on the right inverted. If you play the piece right side up you get 1 melody and then turn the page upside down you get another melody. Some pieces you find 2 clefs (treble & bass) next to each other. If you play the notes as notated in the treble clef, you get 1 melody and as a bass clef you get another melody sort of thing. In the middle of the variations Bach put in a flute sonata based on the same theme since the emperor was a flute player.

A more contemporary piece that uses tons of trills is the very beautiful Aria by Friedrich Gulda. But this piece can become very frustrating unless one has excellent trills as I know from personal experience.


You can PM me if you want the score.

Don't pedal through trills in pre-Romantic works. It doesn't sound right.