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I’ve had quite a few people recently asking me for tips on how to play trills on the piano. It’s no easy task – or is it? This video and article will provide a few tips and techniques you can use to help master trills.

The first thing to do is make sure you play your trills with minimal arm weight. If you’ve watched some of my other technique videos you know that I emphasize arm weight as a very big component in tone production – especially when it comes to slower melodies. The challenge with trills is playing lightly, almost floating your hand above the keys to allow the notes to flow with minimal effort.

The next thing in playing trills is keeping your fingers very close to the keys. Trills are played so fast that there is not a lot of time for movement, so it’s best to keep your fingers very close to the keys – so close you remain in contact with the keys!

Another thing is to make sure your fingers are rounded. It’s nearly impossible to play fast with outstretched fingers; keeping them rounded will help improve speed dramatically allowing more than just one joint to execute the trill. These are some of the most important aspects when it comes to hand position.

However, there is something fundamental about approaching trills. Even if it sounds like just a bunch of notes, you need to figure out exactly how many notes you are playing as if it’s written out. Learn trills like you would learn any other fast passage in your music working with the metronome increasing one notch at a time as you gain confidence.

Another big question is how to know how many notes to play in a trill. One valuable technique that I use frequently is to play just one note of the trill. For example, if you are playing a trill and starting on the upper note, just play that upper note. You will get an idea of how fast you can play the trill by only playing one note of the trill first, either the top note or the bottom note – whichever one you are starting the trill on.

This brings up an important subject in trills, what note does it start on? This could really be a subject for an entirely separate video but I am going to provide some basic information here. As trills are written, you will usually start on the auxiliary (the note above the written note of the trill; the next note in the scale of that key). For example, if you have a piece in C major and you have a D trill, you would start on E.

Can you start a trill on the note written? For example, if it’s written as a D can you start on a D and move up to E? Yes; it depends on the context. There are different schools of thought on this but generally, I would say a trill is basically a long appoggiatura (a non-chord tone resolving into the harmony). So starting on the auxiliary generally makes musical sense. However, in different period styles and in shorter trills, use your judgment as to what sounds best and what you can execute with confidence.

The last thing I want to address with trills is one of the biggest challenges; how to end them! If you don’t know exactly where you are it can be difficult to end them smoothly. The good news is there is a great practice technique for this.

I always like to play the trill right up to the point before it ends, and then stop in a relaxed manner over the keys. Keep doing that until you have a good grasp on where you will be right before the last notes of the trill. Keep playing that passage over and over and eventually add the last notes of the trill. But don’t play them right away; pause in a relaxed manner before you play the last notes. At first, make the pause as long as you need it; eventually, make the duration of the pause smaller and smaller; until the pause is imperceptible to the listener but guides the ending of the trill for you!

Thanks again for watching and reading. I enjoy bringing these videos to you and am planning more of them for you. So please, send in any questions or suggestions to me, Robert Estrin: Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

How to Play Trills on the Piano – Piano Lessons with Robert Estrin

I’ve had quite a few people recently asking me for tips on how to play trills on the piano. It’s no easy task – or is it? This video and article will provide a few tips and techniques you can use to help master trills. The first thing t

This topic comes from a YouTube viewer of mine who was responding to a video I made about a Brilliant Piano Technique.

My piano teacher today told me that lifting those middle 3 fingers up and out of the way causes enormous tension all the way through your arms and that while playing octaves, you need to rest your middle three fingers on the keys in a relaxing position, directly contradicting your video. Please help me!

– Youtube Viewer

Your teacher is absolutely correct in directing you to keep your hands as relaxed as possible. The fact is, playing octaves requires strength. Without that strength, it is impossible to play rapid octave passages. If the fingers are not out of the way, they will hit notes between the octave. So, it is necessary to have a hand position that allows for clean octave work. You can see a demonstration of how this can work in a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodie.

When I was young and developing my technique, it was exhausting practicing this piece. I have extremely small hands that are naturally very weak. However, with progressive, intelligent practice, it is possible to develop strength and speed by utilizing proper hand position in the most relaxed manner possible.

Piano Technique Questions: Raised Finger Technique

This video was produced exclusively for Pianoworld.com

Growing up people used to tell me to play the piano on the tips of my fingers. You might have been told to use rounded fingers, like your holding a ball; for many people, this can be very uncomfortable. This is what we are going to talk about today.

When I was young I was told to play the piano with rounded fingers. I remember watching Vladimir Horowitz in concert and noticed that he seemed to play with flat fingers sometimes; I wondered how this could be. As a child, I had very small, weak hands. When I would play the piano my fingers would collapse which is bad because you can’t control the motion of fingers bent backward. This is one of the reasons I was taught to play with rounded fingers. Eventually, I realized that you don’t have to use any finger muscles to maintain an ideal position at the keyboard! I discovered the perfect piano position which can be maintained with absolutely zero effort. But how is this possible?

If you were to take your hand on a flat surface and let it drop naturally, you would notice that your fingers round naturally. But why is this so significant for the piano? If you put your hand flat on the piano you will notice that some fingers are longer than others; this presents a real problem. However, if you drop the hand and let it fall into its natural position, your fingers will all be in a straight line!

Another important revelation is how while white keys are full-length black keys are only on the half closest to the fallboard. It’s very important to keep your hand at the point at which black keys and white keys meet. Otherwise, you will expend a lot of extra energy and motion going back and forth to hit all the keys.

By using the correct hand position in which you let your fingers fall naturally onto the keys with no effort, and placing your hand at the point at which black and white keys meet, you will utilize the minimal amount of effort to get the maximum amount of sound!

So yes, there is truth to the method of using rounded fingers but there is much more to it. Keeping your hand in a position which is uncomfortable or taxing to maintain will cause unnecessary strain and could damage your hands. Remember; let your hands fall naturally on the keyboard at the magic line at which black and white keys meet. Experiment with this and see how it helps you play in a more relaxed and efficient manner.

Thanks again for joining me and be sure to check out our future videos here at LivingPianos.com

Piano Lessons – Hand Positions

This video was produced exclusively for Pianoworld.com Growing up people used to tell me to play the piano on the tips of my fingers. You might have been told to use rounded fingers, like your holding a ball; for many people, this can be very uncomfo

How To Practice the Piano

3 Part Series

There are 3 separate skills in learning to play the piano:

• Memorizing

• Sight Reading

• Improvising

You can become quite proficient in one or two of these skills and be completely deficient in others. It is necessary to take a unique approach to develop each of these skills. The biggest mistake you can make is to not be clear as to which skill you are working on!

How To Sight Read Almost Anything

The piano presents tremendous challenges in sight reading. While basic tone production on the piano is easier than almost any instrument, (Just try to get a sound out of a flute!) composers make up for it by writing incredibly complex scores.

The secret is to keep your eyes on the music no matter what. If you look down at your hands, you will stop reading. You must count and keep your eyes moving to each measure without ever correcting mistakes. This is very unnatural since practice requires exactly the opposite approach.

If you count and keep moving, your hands will hit many right notes. The more reading you do, the more right notes you will get!

How to Practice the Piano Part 2 – Sight Read Almost Anything

How To Practice the Piano 3 Part Series There are 3 separate skills in learning to play the piano: • Memorizing • Sight Reading • Improvising You can become quite proficient in one or two of these skills and be completely deficient in others. I

HOW TO UTILIZE PARTS OF THE BODY: Power Versus Speed

In playing the piano, different parts of the body are utilized according to the requirements of power and speed. The more power required, the more mass of the body is utilized. The more speed, the less mass is needed.

Finger technique: When the utmost in speed is required, only the fingers will do.

HOW TO DEVELOP FINGER TECHNIQUE: Hand Positions and Finger Patterns

Almost all piano technique can be reduced down in its simplest form to hand positions and finger patterns. As a beginner, most people learn to play with 5 fingers of each hand over 5 keys. In time this is expanded. Ultimately this is the basis for all piano technique.