Trills and embellishments

How to develop finger strength and control for even, well-articulated ornaments

MISHA GALAGANOV

Professor of viola and chair of strings at Texas Christian University, US

BORN Irkutsk, Russia

STUDIED WITH Pavel Galaganov, Michael Kugel, Barbara Sudweeks, Martha Katz, Wayne Brooks

TEACHES University students aged 17+; private and pre-college students (all ages)

Working on trills can help us to play all embellishments – mordents, turns, grace notes – more effectively. It also trains our fingers to be faster and stronger, and helps us to improve our left-hand position. A good trill should be even and have a controlled conclusion that ends exactly at the beginning of the next beat, without fluctuating in speed. To do this, we must curve all the fingers nicely over the fingerboard, without squeezing the neck or holding any unnecessary tension, and we have to support the sound consistently with the right hand. We can build up our trilling skills step by step by working on the basic exercises below, and by practising trills in technical etudes and within more musical contexts. Mostly I use violin exercises, because they have been proven to be effective and are equally applicable to the viola.

EXERCISES

Anybody can learn to trill well. The secret is to lift and drop the trilling finger from the base knuckle – not the middle joint, or you will get stuck – like a hammer tapping the string, with the fingers curved closely over the fingerboard. Neither the fingers that stay on the string nor the trilling finger should press hard. While playing normally with the bow:

• Place a finger lightly on the string, as if to play a harmonic, then add a little weight, until you hear a clear stopped note. Don’t squeeze the neck!

• Use only this amount of weight when you trill. It’s a lot less than you might think. Use exercise 1 to warm up your fingers, moving from the base joint without pressing or squeezing. To trill, you will need to repeat this action quickly and evenly. To train a fast, controlled finger action:

• Keep the fingers curved, close to the fingerboard

• Play exercise 2 slowly. Wait until the last moment to drop each finger from the base knuckle, then lift it quickly away, as though the string is very hot

• Each time the finger leaves the string, let it relax before it lands and pushes off the fingerboard again

• Practise each rhythm on all strings, using every combination of fingers (0–1, 1–2, 2–3, 3–4; 0–2, 1–3, 2–4 and so on), in semitones and whole tones.

IN YOUR PRACTICE

It’s better to practise trills for five minutes a day than ten-to-fifteen minutes one day and nothing the next. Choose one or two things to improve and stick with them until they become stable. If your teacher comes around in the middle of the night, gives you a viola or violin and says, ‘Play this exercise now!’ you should be able to do it right away and go back to sleep. If you can’t, you need to practise more! At the same time, it can be counter-productive to practise trills for more than ten minutes at a time. To improve more quickly, spend another ten minutes working on them later in the day.

If a trill passage in a piece of music doesn’t work right away, make an exercise out of it: play it without trills, then add turns with more notes until the trills become possible. If you are methodical about the places you would like to fix, you will progress in no time.

TIPS FOR TEACHERS

If you have students who are struggling with trills, don’t worry; you will be able to help. There’s nothing mystical about the technique itself. Choose an exercise or etude that aids each individual to progress with the aspect of technique with which they struggle the most. If they can’t play fast trills, help them to build up by using acceleration exercises. If they can play fast trills but have trouble controlling them, focus on rhythmic exercises to help them develop finger strength and stability. Others might have difficulty with their hand position, lightening up the fingers or tension, so tailor each exercise to address specific problems. Not everybody needs the same exercises to further their development.

FURTHER MATERIALS

The Science of Violin Playing by Raphael Bronstein gives great technical and musical advice and can, if studied carefully, give a huge boost to all types of technique, including trills.

August Wilhelmj and James Brown’s now out-of-print A Modern School for the Violin contains effective exercises, including for trills and mordents. Visit bit.ly/3jxCbPW for some examples.

NEXT MONTH Cellist Denis Severin discusses practising on open strings