PRACTICE TIPS #27: Practicing Trills

[Brent Hugh <bhugh@GRIFFON.MWSC.EDU>]

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PRACTICE TIPS #27: Practicing Trills

------------------------------------

Recently someone left a message on our online Piano Pedagogy Message Board 

(http://www.insidetheweb.com/mbs.cgi/mb175278) asking how to practice 

trills.  Here are some suggestions:





Trills are one of those things where the best advice, really, is just to 

practice them a little every day.  Trills won't improve dramatically in an 

instant, the way some technical problems will.  But if you keep after them 

a little every day, they will gradually improve with time.



Trilling is a very basic piano technique, and if your trills are not good 

(slow and/or uneven) it is well worth the time spent practicing 

them.  Improvements in your trills will spill over and improve many other 

areas of your piano technique.



An ideal routine would be to do trill practice maybe 2-4 minutes 2x per 

day.  Allow some time between your two practice periods. A little practice 

every day is better than a lot of practice occasionally.



Ideas for practicing trills:



     * do short bursts of trill (3 notes, 4 notes, 6 notes,

       8 notes) and try to increase speed

     * mentally plan out these short bursts before you play them

       ("Load your weapon before firing it!" as I often tell my

        students.)

     * practice every different combination of fingers (the

       different combinations reinforce each other, even if you

       rarely use combinations like 2-5 in real life)

     * practice sometimes hands alone, sometimes hands together

       contrary motion, sometimes hands together parallel motion

     * aim for relaxed upper arm, shoulders, neck, back, legs, etc.--these

       will gradually tense up as you aim for speed in trills; take

       time periodically to release this build-up of tension



One day's practice following these ideas might be as follows:



First practice session

----------------------

Do a 4-note trill (CDCD) RH with fingers 1212, then echo it in LH 

(mirrored: DCDC) with fingers 1212.



Repeat this (playing CDCD, then *PAUSE* to evaluate, then repeat it if it 

was not good enough) until you've done it just once well in each hand.



Done well would mean: (1) *fast* enough and (2) *even* enough.



Once you've done that finger combination (12) well, move on to the next 

finger combination.



Practice this way until you have done all these finger combinations: 12, 

13, 23, 24, 34, 35, 45, 14, 25, 15.



You should be able to do all finger combinations in both hands in about 2 

minutes, taking time to do each finger combination in each hand once really 

well.



Second practice session

-----------------------

Later that day, go back and follow the same procedure, but do 8-note trills 

(CDCDCDCD).  Think of this mentally not as 8 notes run together, but as two 

4-note groups (CDCD+CDCD).  This will make sense to you at this point, 

because you have already spent time practicing 4-note groups earlier in the 

day.



This again should take no more than 2-3 minutes.



Practice sessions in following days

-----------------------------------

Naturally this same practice procedure can be done hands together (parallel 

or contrary motion) and on different combinations of white and black notes 

(an F-Gb trill is very different from CD, which is different from Db-Eb, 

Eb-F, and so on).



Over a period of time (a couple of weeks) you would do it with all sorts of 

different combinations of different hands, different notes, different 

lengths, and so on.



This really works to improve trills.  Give it a try and you'll see!



--Brent





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

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