I am playing a piece which has a series of trills one after the other the first one is minims (Db-Eb, D-EB, Eb-F, E-F) which is bad enough but then it gets worse with eight crotchets going up a semi-tone at a time, all trilled.

I can do them very slowly but as soon as I try to speed things up even a little I forget which fingers I need to put down and/or which one(s) I'm supposed to be moving. I think this is because, after a while, I don't really know what note I'm meant to be playing anyway. Would writing them out in full and "reading" them help? Does anyone have any other suggestions?

I would be interested in this too - the trill section in Arethusa is sounding a bit dodgy at the moment. I have been practising the trills individually with a metronome - alternating the notes as crotchets, then quavers then semiquavers (each for 4 beats). Then notching up the metronome a couple of times every day. It has definitely improved speed and eveness. I'm also trying to link the trills together in pairs and make the changeover smoother. Still needs a lot of work though.

I've forgotten almost everything I knew about oboe playing, so forgive me if I'm talking out of my hat here. The series of notes you describe is part of a chromatic scale and I don't remember learning it, either . *is not good at scales*

However, what occurs to me is that it is just that, a series of notes in a scale. With most practising conundrums (conundra? who knows?) I try to break things down into manageable chunkettes, and in this case would focus on the framework. I'm presuming, since it is chromatic, that you're doing said trills from the lower note first? I'd want to anchor that in my head first, Db D Eb E and however far it goes up. Next I'd work on making sure I knew how each individual trill went, but I think in this case might try first the Db-Eb, til I was sure of the transitions, then the D-Eb one til sure of those transitions, then tack the two together. Unless of course the whole series brings with it a sense of panic, in which case I'd start at the tail end of the whole thing .
If any of the trills themselves is 'orrible to finger (that's the bit I can't now remember) - doing those with the dotted rhythms in each direction, dotted quaver semiquaver dotted quaver semiquaver and then reversing that, helps to make the finger transitions smooth. And I'd agree with your overarching approach of starting slowly and building up tempo.

After pairing two neighbouring ones, I'd add the next again to the sequence, depending on whether you're doing this forwards or backwards, and again, if there are beastly fingerings in the mix, I'd do them all with dotted as well as straight rhythms. My thinking in this is to get the trills to be automatic, and to focus instead just on that chromatic scale: the nearest parallel idea I can think of is when playing a piece where there is melody and accompaniment all in the one line, and you're trying to bring out the melody - you want to get to the stage where you can think melody and the rest slots in round it.

Is that a load of garble, is it something you've tried already, or do you think it might actually help?

Having just had a look (and quick play) of Flobiano's pieces, I have come to the conclusion that what is really causing me problems is that mine is NOT a chromatic scale. The trills alternate between a tone between the two notes of the trill and a semi-tone between the two notes. I ought to have realised earlier that this is totally counter-intuitive for me because when I sight-read the piece in my lesson I instinctively put a semi-tone between all the trill notes. When my teacher pointed out I was playing the wrong notes I got utterly confused but at the time put this down to a language problem because he was rattling off the note names in French and I ended up making him show me on the piano so I could see what I was supposed to be playing.


I hadn't thought of starting at the end so I'll try that (it does indeed bring a sense of panic).


The fingering is not too bad, except that the Eb is better fingered in a different way in the different trills.


What you've written is very clear, thanks

okay, one more thought - have you tried playing the intervals not as trills but simply as paired quavers? You could slur them together so that they tie up in the right pattern in your mind?

I spent some time this afternoon starting at the end and working backwards as Anacrusis suggested and this proved very interesting although not in the way I had expected. I thought it would help psychologically because it would mean I was going towards familiar territory (and it may have done) but the unexpectedly useful thing it did was highlight which particular note changes were causing problems. For the next couple of days I'm going to split the passages into two: upto and including the awkward change and the awkward change to the end. I'm hoping that once I've got the two bits clear in my mind and my fingers (I can't say halves because they're not the same length) I will be able to put them back together again.

May I ask how it's been going, kerioboe?

The quick answer is nowhere
But for reasons totally unrelated to music. I have been under a great deal of stress at work (which I don't want to go into on a public forum) and it had huge repercussions on my music. I was having trouble remembering how many crotchets there were in a minim so there was no way my brain was going to be able to cope with complicated trills.

Thankfully things were finally sorted on Friday and I am feeling much calmer but I had all day orchestra rehearsals at the weekend and have been at work all day today so haven't yet had time to go back and try working on the trills using the advice on here.

Now that I am back to my "normal" self, I am quite appalled at the effect the work-related events had on me and feel I owe my teacher an apology for having been so withdrawn in my last few lessons (and with such pathetic breathing that I could barely talk let alone play an oboe )

I decided this afternoon that I really ought to go back to working on these trills and was pleasantly surprised. Before things at work got totally out of hand, and my playing went to pot, I had had one (or possibly two) practice sessions in which I had worked on all but the last series of trills starting at the end and working back towards the beginning. I haven't attempted to play them at all for almost three weeks but putting them aside has turned out to be a good thing; although they are by no means perfect (too slow for a start) my fingers have learnt where they are supposed to be going

There was a huge difference between the series that I had played starting at the end and the last one, which I hadn't worked on before and my fingers had no idea what they were supposed to be doing. Clearly for me working from the end is what I need to do (plus time to let things mature) so huge thanks to Anacrusis for suggesting it

- I'm really pleased that things are beginning to work for you there, kerieoboe and am also a great fan of letting things mature.......


(well, that's my excuse for my more inactive times, and I'm sticking to it )

Having now acquired an instrument in an odd key - the voice flute, a recorder in D, I'm finding also that trills are absolutely hideous to do in series, so my sympathy for your plight has grown massively in the last few weeks. Voice flutes tend to be used to play French baroque music you see, and every other note seems to be a trill . Am also doing the "little and often" approach just now, because playing for more than about half an hour in a weird key scrambles my brain totally .

Thank you anacrusis, I'll no longer lust after a voice flute like yours. I have an aversion to frilly French baroque music so I have no need for one.

I fully intend using it for some Bach too. And since he modulates madly, the same dilemma ends up applying

I have just bought another CD of the piece with the trills (Molique Concertino) and can't quite decide if I should be reassured or alarmed by the notes:

"It virtually ignores the acknowledged techinical imitations of the instrument: numerous passages are written in keys which are hard to play on the oboe and, for instance, present huge technical problems by the use of trills on each tone in the rising chromatic lines."

Sounds, er, fun. A quick Google reveals a Youtube video of Alex Klein playing it and the score is on ISMLP.

I'd already listened to Alex Klein on Youtube - my teacher suggested I listened to a different version so I bought a CD of Holliger playing it.

Despite what the CD notes say it is on the ATCL list so shouldn't be that hard

Except that Trinity does some bizarre things in its list setting sometimes. On recorder, for LTCL, I had pieces which merely needed a fairly standard work-on-the-difficult-bits sort of practice, and others for which every pair of bars needed extended work, with a very lot of time being spent on the score minus instrument, trying to piece together how it was to go, and ages also being spent on sequencing alternative fingerings which changed with almost every repetition of the same note. One of those latter pieces, I counted as the very hardest of the five I put forward for the exam....and it's now been re-listed as an ATCL one. I can't help, in my cynical way, feeling that actually, they've done this because their examiners never want to be subjected to the beastly piece again .... ....
*returns to the new score she's just obtained of some Stockhausen*

My remark about the ATCL was to be taken with a pinch of salt, since I'm not sure that gradings of pieces in themselves mean a great deal.

My teacher pointed out yesterday that there is no slur over the top of the phrases with the trills, which means I'm supposed to be tonguing the start of each new trill. When I objected that this made it even harder, he replied that he didn't ever remember saying it was easy

After further discussion with my teacher, I think perhaps you may be right about the oboe lists as well as the recorder ones. He was talking about pieces written at a similar period and which, superficially looked similar but were in fact easier to play then the one I am battling with. One of the "easier" ones he mentioned is on the LCTL list and the other on the FCTL

Having spent last week playing virtually nothing but trills and turns, they were markedly improved this week. (In fact my teacher even said they were "good" and he rarely says that about anything). Unfortunately, the bits in between had gone backwards