Week 2 Assignment

Michele nice work!

there is a difference, just a subtle one. So, on all videos, the main issue is that we are trying to still control the non-trilling fingers, usually by slightly hovering them above the keys. When we hover, we are causing extra work/tension in our hand while our hand is trying to do something difficult with the trill. The goal is to have our hand fully at rest and just have an accurate weight balance over where we are trilling..... so your outer fingers will just be resting at ease.

Your movement in and out is great! 

The thing that immensely improved is that the second videos tone and control is much improved. I could tell that you have achieved a higher level of weight balance over the trilling part of your hand, which gave your a warmer more focused sound and more control. the reason you didn't see as much striking difference was because of the hovering fingers, as they maintained the uncertainty, unevenness, and lack of speed you were hoping for. 

Dr. Leann Osterkamp He Thank you so much for your feedback Leann. As usual, your diagnostics are really helpful. I am making progress now on getting a resting hand, but it is going to take me quite a bit of practice yet to get to an assured evenness in my trills. I learned a lot from your Tonebase course on essentials where you cover trills, but this TWI has been really, really helpful. Thank you.

Peter Golemme Hi! Very nice work. I do think that, since this is the subject, it would be important and necessary to play the ornament the same way each time. I will note that, in the edition you are using, the notation is vague and one could interpret the ornament as simply a mordent instead of a full trill. 

I, personally, would interpret it as a mordent, mainly because it would allow the last half note to have a sense of fading (since the piano will naturally fade) prior to moving on and I like that affect here. I also would like that the mordent would end on the primary note, making the shift to the next note more rhythmically clear and bringing out the primary note movement. 

With the trills you wrote out, the nachshlage "gives away" the following note by using an anticipation. I think that takes away some of the structural sharpness that is created by having the next idea start firmly on the downbeat and kind of blends the subject into the next thing. 

Just interpretive ideas to consider. 

Dr. Leann Osterkamp He again, this is very informative and useful feedback.  It never occurred to me to let this penultimate note FADE into the final note. Instead I've always focused on SUSTAINING it until the final note. But fading makes great sense in the context of the downward step to the tonic.

One of my goals in plodding through the WTC has been to improve my trills, so I tend to thrown them in at every possible opportunity, and once in there, try to replicate them in every parallel place throughout the piece. Perhaps all without enough attention paid to the musical function of the note & ornament!  It's a priceless benefit from Tonebase to have access to the attention and feedback of artists such as yourself on our humble offerings.  Thanks again for this workshop.

Marc M I think your balance is actually on the right track! I think the slowness/awkwardness comes from sticking in the same place during the trill. The end RH trill... at the beginning (when you were most relaxed/in control) you will see that you had a controlled very microscopic movement inwards (nice job!). The second you stopped that motion is when you saw that pinky almost start to rise.... and this happened when you were transitioning to the next thing, which means you just hadn't paced out your in/out motion to be in the right place to seamlessly flow into the next thing. The LH never moved in/out like your right hand. The more you do that microscopic controlled movement in/out to go with your improving balance, it will solve the issues described above.