Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical What is the proper way to do a trill?

Apparently it is incorrect to use your fingers to play the trill - the correct way is to use your wrist.

Thing is, I find it SOO much easier to do a trill using the fingers! However they get tied after a while.. would this happen if you were using wrist?

Cheers

In my opinion, you should never insert your wrist into
your playing as an active participant, that is, making deliberate
wrist motion an inherent part of your technique. Your
hand is attached to your wrist, and so in that sense
your wrist is unavoidably involved in playing. However,
that is the limit to its involvement in playing.

If you go beyond this and make deliberate wrist motion
a part of your playing, what you do is to complicate
your playing motion. Adding the wrist to your playing makes
playing easier, because you've added the weight and
muscle of the wrist to aid the hand and fingers in
pressing the keys. But by doing this you increase the
complexity of your playing motion by a factor of two:
now, in addition to the finger motions, you've
got to learn the wrist motions that you've made an
inherent part of your playing motion.

This is why in the 17th to 19th centuries, students were
taught to play with a coin on the back of each hand.
This gets you playing mainly from the fingers and
hands, with limited wrist, forearm, and body motion.
This is the simplest and most efficient way to play.
Today this old way of playing is ridiculed, but Bach,
Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, etc. were all taught
to play like this.

A long trill that lasts several measures is played with
rubato, that is, in free time. You sometimes see concert
pianists playing a long trill in perfect, machine-like
time. That's disgraceful, beginner's level playing.

Alrighty. Two bits from pianos_n_cheeze over here... Play what is most comfortable and efficient for you. What I have learned and practised both as a classical and jazz player is that playing the piano is a full body experience. Your full arm is involved and every muscle in it into your shoulders down into your back, anchored by your feet on the floor. I have to disagree with Gyro on this one. To use only your fingers on a trill (or a line or a scale) you actually have to constrict the rest of the body from proper muscle movement which usually ends up causing pain in the forarms and tendants (tendonitis). When you relax those muscles and allow the weight of your body and arms to work with your hands, you might find it easier to manouver through different technical demands. Not only that, but the sound of your instrument literally changes and there is more ability for you to create dynamic changes without hurting yourself.

Cheeze...

The above sentence from Cheeze sums it up, in my opinion.

For my first few years of learning to play piano I was classically trained,

then I got into my teens - and rock music!

I gave up the lessons, and from then on (although I had the basics - scales/fingering etc)

became self-taught.

This opened up a whole new world of freedom, expression, ENJOYMENT!!!

No more of that regimented, almost 'robotic' style of playing.

Every time I see classically trained musicians attempting to play 'popular' music

(from sheet music, for heavens sake!) this illustrates the point perfectly.

It always looks as though they feel awkward & uncomfortable - and it shows in the

passionless way it comes across.

Good music has feeling, and comes from the heart - not rigidly copying a row of

dots on a piece of paper.

Play what you feel, how you want to play it - & how it comes naturally.


That's the way I see it!

.

that is an approach i really believe in. and it is one that has worked very well for me.

it sounds very much like madame chaloff's approach. she was a well known piano teacher in boston who a lot of the great jazz pianists studied with...people like chick corea, hal galper, kenny werner, steve kuhn, and i think even keith jarrett, although i'm not really sure about jarrett.

she emphasized relaxation, weightlessness of the arms...using gravity to produce the tone.

werner talks about his experience with her in his book "effortless mastery." i took a lesson with hal galper a while back and hal talked about madame chaloff and that way of playing too.

i'd love to get more information about madame chaloff. i did a google search but not that much comes up. guess i'll have to dig a little deeper.

Dave,

if you do a search on the forum, you'll find that I, and others have posted a thread on Madame Chalof.

I came across this on a website, its for the guitar but I think the principle is the same.

http://www.guitarprinciples.com/GettingBetter/gettingbettermenu.php
http://www.guitarprinciples.com/GettingBetter/secret_of_speed.php

In the end I think it's about have complete relaxation and using only what's necessary to play.. and finding ways to make difficult technical stuff just as ordinary as brushing your teeth. I feel like I am starting to get what kenny werner's is talking about.. playing the piano is supposed to be easy like riding a bike. the stuff that doesn't feel right are the stuff that needs work.. and learning to do that is the hard part. The learning part is hard, long and requires all the focus and discipline and energy you've got.

etc,

thanks so much! i will definitely check out that thread on madame chaloff.

btw, ive been working on the kenny k solo. it's giving me a lot of insights into his playing.

check out what i just found on youtube. great timing right? :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv9nyBcoOTo