Organ Trills

[Pooh]

Can anyone share your experience of playing:

1. Pedal trills
2. Rt. hand trill , with pedal theme playing.
(i.e. Bach, Fugue in g minor BWV 578)

Can anyone suggest a way I could practice to have better co-ordination when playing trills ?

[pierrot]

I would suggest practicing any difficult trills as if they were 16th-notes (or, in some contexts, 8th-notes.) This way, you will hear each trill as a simple melodic figure that plays an active role in the music's contrapuntal fabric, as opposed to merely being an ornamented stationary note. After you are comfortable with the feel of playing the trills in this fashion, you can start to increase incrementally the number of repercussions per beat (e.g. what was initially a group of four 16th's become a 16th-note sextuplet, which in turn becomes a group of eight 32nd's, etc.) After you reach a certain point in this process, the trill will begin to sound and feel "natural" and you will no longer find it necessary to think of it as being at any specific subdivision of the beat. When I play a long trill, I often like to change the repercussions' rate gradually over the trill's duration; this helps to make the trill sound more "alive."

Also, when you play trills in the pedals, make sure that all vertical motion comes from your ankles, not your legs; otherwise your legs will become tense, and the trills will consequentially be uneven.

[willard3]

I would suggest practicing any difficult trills as if they were 16th-notes (or, in some contexts, 8th-notes.) This way, you will hear each trill as a simple melodic figure that plays an active role in the music's contrapuntal fabric, as opposed to merely being an ornamented stationary note. After you are comfortable with the feel of playing the trills in this fashion, you can start to increase incrementally the number of repercussions per beat (e.g. what was initially a group of four 16th's become a 16th-note sextuplet, which in turn becomes a group of eight 32nd's, etc.) After you reach a certain point in this process, the trill will begin to sound and feel "natural" and you will no longer find it necessary to think of it as being at any specific subdivision of the beat. When I play a long trill, I often like to change the repercussions' rate gradually over the trill's duration; this helps to make the trill sound more "alive."

Also, when you play trills in the pedals, make sure that all vertical motion comes from your ankles, not your legs; otherwise your legs will become tense, and the trills will consequentially be uneven.

The first paragraph is pure gold. Start with measured trills and slow practice, then gradually make it free.


I'm not an organ expert, so I've never really had to do pedal trills...I still can't play Bach's In Dir Ist Freude, which has a couple of brief trills in the pedal.

[Vivaletour]

so, im not an expert, but am currently studying the Gm fugue by bach. as for the trill in right hand, you can keep it measured even at performance because of the speed at which the fugue is played. it isn't untill romantic music that keyboard trills must be executed at an extremely rapid pace. in free organ works esp. earlier north german baroque, remember to play in stylus phantasticus. this includes trills (the same also applies for the franch baroque)

as for pedal trills, unless they are notated, pleas stay away from them. nothing ruins a good performance of the toccata and fugue in d minor like some pedal trills, they just don't fit.

also try practicing to the beat with righted rhythm, this will help immensely