Week 1 Assignment
Welcome to the latest two-week intensive with Leann Osterkamp!
Do your trills never sound quite right? Do your fingers refuse to play trills? This two-week intensive will start by giving you some basic academics about correctly deciding which notes you should be playing in each unique trill. We will then discuss how to train your ear and fingers to play consistent elegant trills each and every time, using proven practice techniques that you can incorporate right away, no matter what level of study you are currently at.
Week 1 assignment:
- Pick 1 or 2 trills within your repertoire (or dream repertoire) to analyze
- On blank sheet music paper, write out the entire ornament, including (and paying special attention to) the preparation (vorschlag) and termination (nachschlag) of the trill.
- Either record a video discussing or type out your rationality/decisions behind why you specifically chose the preparatory notes and terminating notes that you chose, as well as why you chose the subdivision tempo for the main part of the trill. For example, "I chose to initiate the attack on the note itself instead of the note above because I wanted to emphasize the main melodic contour and create a more stark delineation of beat. I then chose to do precisely 4 sixteenths per left-hand note because I like how the primary note is then contrapuntally emphasized on each beat and I think it balances the energy with accuracy. I then chose to do the somewhat anticipatory notes at the termination because it more elegantly sets up the next section, which needed a more placed set-up vs. a direct entry, since this was the end of a major structural section of the piece."
- Bonus, record yourself playing the exact written version of your trill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovZlaJdMhog
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Hello Everyone!
All are welcome to this intensive. Don’t worry about signing up, apologies for any confusion on that front!
You can just get started with the assignment and I will be noting all the participants, then, will send you the week 2 assignment and any updates
Thanks and looking forward!
Dominic
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Dominic Cheli Thank you for clarifying the link. Looking forward to the assignments!
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Also, Feel free to start ANYTIME you want! Assignment #1 is posted so we will all work on it during this week!
Assignment #2 will be posted next Monday. So take your time and join in at your convenience!
OR save these assignments for when you are able to work through them!
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The link in the email to sign up for this intensive didn't work for me.
https://tonebase.notion.site/1dc79f958bf88094893ffc00b337414e?pvs=105
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The sign up link worked for me but left me with the impression that we would be using the Notion app for this TWI, as opposed to tonebase forums.
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Hi friends- Feel free to just post here on the forum. I will respond here. :)
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Looking forward to working with everyone-
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Hi! Adult learner (about 2 years of playing) here. I think I'll choose a trill or two from Scarlatti's K32 Aria in D minor as I think it's coming up soon in my repertoire list.
My son played his composition at the WSMTA Young Composers Concert June 28 and we saw that you were doing some presentations at the conference - I'm sorry we didn't have a chance to meet you in person.
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Michelle R how cool! Yes, I'm sorry our paths did not cross. Nice to have you in this intensive!
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Hi I wanted to enroll in this Workshop also. the links also took me to Notion and then to No man's land. then I couldn't find any reference to the workshop on Tonebase's web site. I emailed team@tonebase and just got this link now. Hope it's not too late to join.
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Peter Golemme no need to sign up, apparently (see above). I will monitor this forum here, so you can post anytime :)
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Dominic, I need to withdraw from the intensive. The initial assignment isn't something I can do. I'll need to find another way to learn to trill.
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Barbara Blakeslee no problem. Let me know if I can help modify the assignment for you in any way. :)
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Hi Leann!
Thank you for leading us in this TWI!
Apologies to everyone for such a long post!
I am trying to work on the long trills in Bach's Invention No. 4.
There are a few short trills in this piece - the usual ornamental trills that, being short, are fairly straightforward I think. (Although you've given us a lot to think about with "contrapuntal emphasis" etc Leann!)
The long trills are a mechanism to sustain the note of the trill while the melody flows in the other hand. (Thus I think these long trills are different from those in the Chopin example where the RH trill is in the melody line and the LH is accompaniment?) These trills might also be rather straightforward, but I find some things about Bach's trills that are rather confusing. For the RH trill, the ornament is "short", i.e., 2 squiggles. For the LH trill, the ornament is "longer", i.e., 3 squiggles. People's discussions of these trill marks differ (short vs long or no difference at all). If one takes the definition of the 3-squiggle ornament as long, then it is supposed to be accented on the first note, followed by regular trilling. The ornament chart in my Henle edition doesn't entirely help as it doesn't have the long squiggle, denoting an accented trill, without some extraneous mark before the note! Ah well, perhaps there's room to make my own decisions!
In deciding the note length for the trill, I note that the baroque 3/8 time has a brisk tempo (except when I play it!), so I think 32nd notes against the 16th notes of the melody are as much as I can handle. I've tried to play more notes, but it just sounds like chaos even at my tempo. Also, I think anything more would sound too buzzy for an accompaniment. It's difficult enough for me to keep the LH trill quiet.
The ends of both of these trills are tied across the bar line to the 1st beat of the next bar, so I think a nachschlag would be out of place. Rather than a nachschlag, it seems best to terminate both early, one beat before the bar line. I think this helps the transition to the next measure, where the trilling hand takes up motion again, w/o overwhelming/startling the melody line. I don't think a vorschlag is appropriate either since neither is a melody line.
The difference I make between the 2 trills (if there is supposed to be one) is that I start the RH trill slowly on the upper note with 16th notes as for the LH for one beat, then I start the trill. For the LH trill, which I interpret as an accented trill, I do not start on the upper note since the F with the Gsharp in the RH is dissonant and I like the sound of starting with the E better, especially if the note is to be accented. If I were to play w/o the accent, I would just start the trill on the upper note and start straight off with 32nd notes. There are a lot of dissonant sounds in these measures and it seems difficult to minimize the number, though starting off on the primary note does seem slightly better.
My written-out versions are hopefully attached.
RH Measures 19-21:
LH Measures 29-33:
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Michele Great work, if you don't mind my saying so! I'm a professional who had the extraordinary fortune of being mentored by the pianist and scholar Paul Badura-Skoda in Vienna for many years. He literally wrote the book on interpreting Bach's keyboard music and I got to study Bach and many other composers with him.
Even given his exhaustive exploration of Baroque sources and comprehensive analyses, he taught me two rules that have helped greatly where it's not always clear how to play a trill:
First, ornaments are meant to connect notes, never to separate them.
Second, always think musically.
You're thinking musically by starting the left hand trill in m. 29 on the main note. The reason in this case, though, has nothing to do with the dissonance in the other voice (normally a consideration, as Dr. Leann Osterkamp He points out), but rather that the main note E is simply the next note of the scale that precedes it.
As for the short vs. long trill, this is surely nothing more than a slight inconsistency in Bach's handwriting in this particular case. Clearly the trills in the right and left hands are musically equivalent, so it would be genuinely pedantic, not to mention rather unmusical, to play them differently based on their number of "squiggles"! Again, you're doing the right thing by thinking musically.
As for which note to start the right hand trill in m. 19 on, that depends on whether or not you want it to be consistent with the later left hand trill, whether or not you wish to emphasize the repeated C's that precede it, and whether or not you're playing a measured trill (i.e., counting and timing the exact number of notes, as you're doing). Any of these considerations might lead you to start this particular trill on the main note or on the upper auxiliary. In any case, this particular trill can be started on either note.
Hope this helps, and best of luck!
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Michele Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg's 1755 book Anleitung zum Clavierspielen mentions the interchangeability of the short and long trill symbols:
"To indicate a trill one makes use of either the two letters tr, a simple cross, or an m or
n. The latter, being the most appropriate, are the ones most often used, and it matters little whether m or n is used. That some people indicate a long trill with an m and a short one with an n is simply a subtlety. The length of the trill is determined by the note-value, and the copyist or engraver may place an m for an n or vice versa only if the composer has not already made the difference clear in the original manuscript. So what is the point of it? The length or brevity of a trill is always determined by the value of the note to which it is applied."(Marpurg uses m and n for the "squiggles.")
Like many symbols in music notation, the various trill symbols are often ambiguous and sometimes interchangeable, plus they changed over time and in different countries for different composers, so it's typically not possible to cite hard and fast rules such as "this means that." (Bach's own intentionally oversimplified table of ornaments written for his young son learning the clavichord I'm afraid may do more harm than good nowadays in that respect, as most piano teachers just assume that's the be all and end all of the discussion!)
We encounter the same ambiguity throughout the Classical and early Romantic eras with many symbols, not just ornaments, and notational practices. For this reason, many ambiguous notations eventually fell out of fashion—thankfully!
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Thank you Albert ! I really appreciate the feedback. What a lot of great information!
I have been reading Richard Troeger's book on "Playing Bach on the Keyboard". It has so much useful information that it's a bit overwhelming for a beginner like me. However, I should have realized that when he didn't mention anything about 'm' and 'n' markings in the discussion of ornaments that there was no difference.
In any case, I will now keep those 2 rules firmly in mind as I learn more of this mind-blowing composer!
Thank you again for taking the time to give me your feedback.
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Hi Leann! I am playing Beethoven concerto 3, 1. movement. There are a lot of trills. Today I have looked what I am exactly playing and I got confused, because I didn‘t know . Really funny. But the biggest problem I have with the trill at the end of the cadenza. How can I practice it? LG Kerstin
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Wow! What a nice way to work on trills - thank you. This is Chopin Nocturne in c# minor.
Not sure about the trill intros in bar 5, 11 and 13, especially 11. There seem to be so many opinions out there above when to place these - before the main trill, as a part of, etc. Tried listening to Garrick Ohlsson's recordings as a model, but confusing.
Compromise seems to be the old "put the left hand on auto" and let the right hand express the melody, bel canto style. Still confused. Will listen to more recordings to see how others do it. Wish Chopin were here :-)
Looking forward to how you work this out next week. Thank you for doing this.
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Coincidentally I had been working on this Chopin posthumous nocturne when this course came up. Perfect timing. Not sure why he gave instructions not to publish it, but like all of his pieces, it is a little gem. Thank you for your instruction.
