Am having trrrrouble with my trrrills! Any suggestions as to how to get them sounding accurate and not just a muddle....

Isn't it something to do with your diaphragm?? Can't help you much, I'm not a singer. Just moochin' round the forums...

Good luck

That's what I thought, but today I was told to do use the muscles in my throat....

Hm....I'll wait to see what others think....

Emma

Definitely you don't need the diaphragm. Trying it at home, rather than just "thinking" the trill and singing on autopilot, I seem to use the back of my tongue and the top of my throat to trill. And I found that accuracy improved by practising slowly and then speeding up (and then putting more and more oscillations into the trilled note).

Cheers

Katyjay

QUOTE (katyjay @ Mar 15 2005, 05:26 PM)

Emma Definitely you don't need the diaphragm. Trying it at home, rather than just "thinking" the trill and singing on autopilot, I seem to use the back of my tongue and the top of my throat to trill. And I found that accuracy improved by practising slowly and then speeding up (and then putting more and more oscillations into the trilled note). Cheers Katyjay

Definitely agree with starting slow and speeding up (sounds like those tough passages at the piano too!) and the throat bit - just need to experiment with different physical sensations until you find the right one I guess - I still find the long ones difficult.

Hi Emma, I'm new to these forums but I completely understand your dilemma!

Perhaps try "Vocalises " by B. Lutgen, published G. Schirmer, c1930.

There are plenty of exercises in there which are excellent for relaxing the tone and improving flexibility. When sped up these exercises become like one long trill after another! But for starters, start slow!

I realise it's hard hearing what other teachers suggest when it differs to your own, but my teacher detests any focus put on the throat, for her it's about placement, supporting with the body, using your tougue and nasal/mouth resonators to improve tone and letting your brain do the thinking about pitch! Because physically, you can't strain the throat into doing what you believe it needs to in order to produce a trill, a run, anything really!

Hope this may give you another helpful opinion and if you find Lutgen, that it's a big help

Good luck!

P.S. As my teacher keeps on ppounding into my head "SING FROM THE BIKINI LINE!!"

If you think of the trill as singing between two notes very rapidly, my teacher gets me to focus on the upper of the two notes, then dip very rapidly down to the lower and back again, just once to start, then two, three, lots of times. This seems to place the voice better than to start on the lower note and try to work up.

On a trill between A and B I suppose you'd represent it like this (singing to "oooh" or "aah"):

BBBBBBBBBBBABBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBABBBBBBABBBBBBB
BBBABBBABBBABBBABBBBB
BABABABABABABABABABAB

Don't know if that makes any sense...

QUOTE (Shannonr @ Mar 16 2005, 03:49 AM)

As my teacher keeps on ppounding into my head "SING FROM THE BIKINI LINE!!"

I have difficulty with trilling too, but I think the secret is to stay relaxed. The moment I tense up and concentrate on doing it right is when I just can't do it at all.



Amber
x

QUOTE (july @ Mar 16 2005, 03:43 PM)

QUOTE (Shannonr @ Mar 16 2005, 03:49 AM) As my teacher keeps on ppounding into my head "SING FROM THE BIKINI LINE!!"

Is that the same as THINGING FROM THE THONG ?!

To learn trills and any other ornaments.. use VACCAI!!

With diaphragm? Impossible surely?

My teacher took trills slowly as a melody if you like, and I found that increasing the pace worked for me.

I do notice that a lot of trillers seem to soften the voice and "vibrate" - I suspect that this is an extension of training muscles to sing the trill as a slower melody in the first instance.

How else would you expect to build a trill?

QUOTE

To learn trills and any other ornaments.. use VACCAI!!

Definitely. Nicola Vaccai's Metodo Pratico di Canto Italiano per Camera is a brilliant book for learning all sorts of technique.

But best used with your teacher's help rather than on your own, and the CD recording with it (if you get the version edited by Battaglia) is rather demoralising - the experts recording the exercises do so with flair and speed, so it's not much help if you're trying to figure out how to make that sound

The trill exercise in it is quite jolly, though.

Cheers

Katyjay

Yes I thoroughly recommend Vaccai's Metodo too.



Amber
x

Where do I get one of these magic books? A sing-a-long CD sounds great!!!

Found the magic book and cd on Warblers. Hope it works (as long as I work hard too!)

Does anyone use any other methods for singing? You hear about all sorts for technique on the other forums, but I have just stuck to the many sheets my teacher has given me. She's in Munich on a course at the moment, so no doubt there will be all sorts of wonderful things to try when she gets back!!

But before then I need to work a miracle on my trills (after working a miracle on my flu )

Thanks all.

I got my copy from www.brittensmusic.com, but be sure to order the version with CD. The first copy I ordered came without the CD and I had to send it back.

It did say with CD. Have you ever used Warblers? If you can't find what you want, Caroline will spend hours looking for stuff for you, and they can be a couple of pounds cheaper than some places. I can't remember if you even pay postage, and you pay when you get it. She is sooo helpful.

I will check out that other website though, Amber - I love looking through music shops, even if they are virtual ones! Any recommendations?

Methods: "straight from the horse's mouth" so to speak, is the Manuel Garcia's Treatise on the Art of Singing - but that can be difficult to get a hold of. This is the bible of Bel Canto from the 19th century and includes a huge number of exercises as well as a lot of physiological explanations for the how and why. It is definitely still in print in Italian (Ricordi) and possibly in French but am I am not sure about English! Dover books has the Marchesi - Bel Canto method book , I believe Marchesi was a pupil of Garcia so carries on the Bel Canto tradition there...

A really useful little reader is Lamperti's Vocal Wisdom: a series of Zen-like sayings by a famous early 20thC teacher, which I found really helpful....

Great! Managed to get some of these ordered from Amazon, together with another book on bel canto which I liked the cover of!

My Vaccai came this morning, and I'm amazed how musical the exercises are. My CD has no singing though.

Oh that's strange - my version has female singer, male singer and accompaniment only.

which version have you got - mine's a Petrs edition; but I must say that the pianist plays beautifully!

Hi Emma and Amber

Amber, I guess you've got the same version as me - published by Riccordi, I think, edited by E. Battaglia, which has a CD with it containing the exercises recorded by two of his pupils (with his son accompanying) and then the accompaniments on their own.

After the first couple of exercises I found the CD intensely annoying - when it came to some of the more tricky ornaments it would have been FAR more useful to have a slowed-down singer as well as a full speed one (rather than two full speed versions) so that one could figure out exactly how to sing the ornaments. And of course the recitative accompaniment is impossible to sing with because real-life recitative is never at a fixed speed.

So I ditched the CD, but I use the exercises a lot. I sing through them once a day immediately after warming up. Then I go back through any I couldn't do comfortably the first time, and I also use them for reference if there's an ornament I'm having trouble singing in my repertoire.

One tip, though. Don't start with "Manca Solecita". It's harder than it looks - try the second one ("Semplicetta Tortorella") first, then go back - it's a lot easier that way round.

Cheers

Katyjay

QUOTE (katyjay @ Apr 7 2005, 06:04 PM)

One tip, though. Don't start with "Manca Solecita". It's harder than it looks - try the second one ("Semplicetta Tortorella") first, then go back - it's a lot easier that way round.

Yes we have got the same version. I agree totally - my Manca Solecita just sounds Manky, even after I've warmed up!

QUOTE (katyjay @ Apr 7 2005, 07:04 PM)

when it came to some of the more tricky ornaments it would have been FAR more useful to have a slowed-down singer as well as a full speed one (rather than two full speed versions) so that one could figure out exactly how to sing the ornaments.

Have you tried Shubertline? When you play the exercises you can slow them down as much as you want woth the slider thingy on teh Scorch toolbar. Do a search for Vaccai, and then you can play without buying.... web page in question does not have a specific address, sorry.

Shubertline

Emma

Does it just play them as midi files, or is it someone singing? It matters because, particularly with ornaments like an acciaccatura, the way you sing it is not the same as the way you play it on a piano.

Cheers

Katyjay

Just midi files I'm afraid. Really basic stuff. But it plays the 'melody' as well as the accompaniment, so might be OK for note bashing....

Hello, just dipped into forum. If it's any consolation, I find trills -any ornaments - really difficult on piano, so I imagine it must be horrific with voice!

My piano teacher is also a voice teacher - out of interest, I'll ask her which she finds most difficult.

Anne

Hi, I've just dipped into Schubertline to have a look, and it's quite a good site isn't it.

Schubertline rocks - membership is really not expensive and you can print out unlimited copies of a huge amount of music...which, if you have a music programme like Sibelius/Photoscore and a scanner (OK, some equipment needed!), you can then scan back into your computer as a score file, and transpose, play and reprint....which I did for about half my Dip pieces. Very very useful.

Also Schubertline if you are a subscriber, will actually make an effort to publish on their site a song (out of copyright, ie composer dead over 70 years) you are after (they did it for me for Bei dir allein)!!!!

Vaccai - yes, manca is a bit of a pain! I could never quite get it smooth on the first or even second go...

Having got over the manky Manca and to part way through lesson VIIII I realise that the middle pages are missing from my copy.

SCREAM!!!!!