PRACTICE TIPS #6: " . . . Yet I Couldn't Play an Ornament."

[Brent Hugh <bhugh@griffon.mwsc.edu>]

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PRACTICE TIPS #6: " . . . Yet I Couldn't Play an Ornament."

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Several of my students this semester are working on pieces with numerous 

turns, mordents, trills, and other ornaments.  Ornaments can be among the 

most difficult technical problems for pianists to master.



One of my former teachers likes to tell this story: He had auditioned to 

The Juilliard School with, among other things, Liszt's Mephisto Waltz.  At 

one of his first Juilliard lessons, his teacher asked him to play a small 

trill or turn from a Haydn sonata.  He tried several times but couldn't 

play it accurately.  "Admitted to Juilliard with the Mephisto Waltz," he 

used to say, "yet I couldn't play an ornament from a 'simple' Haydn sonata."



I'm sure my teacher was not totally incompetent--he could certainly muddle 

through those ornaments to a greater or lesser degree.  But the point he 

was making, is that it is quite possible to master even the virtuoso 

difficulties of the Mephisto Waltz without having mastered the perfect 

clarity of mind, evenness of technique, and simple grace required to play a 

small, "fussy" ornament.



A major difficulty with ornaments is getting a perfectly clear mental 

picture of every note in the ornament.  Breaking ornaments into small (2 or 

3 note) mental chunks, mental practice (visualization), and tabletop 

practice are all helpful.



Ruth Slenczynska has these suggestions for practicing ornaments, which are 

helpful from both the "mental" side and the technical side:



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I learned to perform mordents, appoggiaturas, crossed appoggiaturas, trills 

and trill endings, turns, and all sorts of fussy ornamentation in this way: 

Play the desired mordent, trill ending, or whatever pattern is bothersome, 

four times in C major, four times in D flat major, four times in D major, 

etc., all the way up and down the chromatic scale. Learn to do mordents in 

all possible fingerings: 132, 232, 243, 343, 354, 454, and in both hands. 

You are teaching necessary patterns to the muscles.



In the same way, going up and down the chromatic scale, trills should be 

practiced with every possible finger combination: 13, 23, 24, 34, 35, 45; 

same procedure for the left hand. . . . Use the metronome slowly at first, 

perhaps only four notes at a beat of 80; always aim at steadiness rather 

than speed.



(From MUSIC AT YOUR FINGERTIPS by Ruth Slenczynska, Doubleday & Co., Garden 

City, NY, 1961, p.42.)



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Happy Practicing!



--Brent



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PRACTICE TIPS is by pianist, teacher, composer, and internet nerd

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