[sylvia]

Sorry for this very basic question - I have just returned to the piano after 20 years away and am trying to practice for my first lesson next week. When you do a trill in the LH the trill note on which to start is indicated on the stave - but do then trill one up from that note, or one down. I know in the RH it's the trill starting note and one up, but am not sure which it is in the LH - I think you go one up like in the RH?

[Gill the Piano]

First lesson after 2o years I'd keep away from trills, actually. But there's no intrinsic difference between LH and RH trills, I think. Note itself, note above, N.I., Note below, N.I. A proper teacher will be along to tell you in a minute!

[Celestite]

Hmm, proper teacher - what's one of them, then, Gill? Someone once commented I wasn't like any other teacher they'd ever come across. I'm still not sure whether it was a compliment or an insult!
Anyway, on the subject of trills, the hand you play it with is irrelevant- there are a fair few occasions where both hands trill together and would obviously then do the same thing. They are much more governed by the period and style of the music, ie. a Bach trill would be very different to a Chopin trill, so it's not a black and white answer, I'm afraid. Until you see your teacher and start going into the whole subject of ornamentation in depth I would work on the basis if you know for certain what you would do with your right hand, do the same with your left.
Welcome back to the world of wiggely fingers!

[markymark]

I always find that the left hand is always the first to get "sloppy" after a few weeks without practice, while the right hand seems to do better, whether you are right-handed or left-handed! Strange that....

For this reason, you've been out of practice for more than a few weeks and trills would be the fastest way of totally discouraging yourself. Start simple with scales, building up to legato and stoccato. You'll be amazed how your hand will ache, particularly down the outside of your hand after a few minutes of this!

There are also hand and finger exercises that are great for targetting particular fingers, Hanon being one of them.

As for the matter of trills, just like a mordant which is 'note-note above-note', and the inverted mordant which goes to the note below, you also get different types of trills depending on the period. Baroque usually start on the note above, unless the previous note is the note above. Classical trills are more likely to start on the note.

[Celestite]

Fingering can be pretty crucial with trills too. I echo Markymark and Gill's comments that they probably aren't the best thing to start off with. Out of interest, what standard did you play at before you stopped?

[sylvia]

You are all so right! I am too embarassed to say what level i reached before as i am so far from that now. I had picked a nice short piece for my first re-attempt - Bach's Minuet in A minor from the Anna Magdalena notebook. Also Clementi's Sonatina in C, first movement and Beethoven's Rondo from the Sonatina in F. Although i have been practising for quite a long time each day for about a week my trills are nowhere what they were & you are right i was really getting discouraged and starting to dread those parts of the pieces. But since you said trills are a bit ambitious at this stage i have decided simply to take them out & feel so much better! I used to know all the scales and I can hardly remember any now & what parts of scales i can do are all jerky with bad fingering. And they used to be so fluid. Following your suggestions I will dig out my scale book from my parents attic!

Do you know what level those pieces are? I am guessing they are around grade 1 or2?

[markymark]

Yeah, about that...

The Minuet in A minor would definitely fit into an upper Grade 1 standard.

[Celestite]

Hi Sylvia
Please don't be embarrassed. If you feel so inclined, have a look at the thread *Motivation" on this forum. You may find it interesting and encouraging to read you are not alone

[markymark]

[sylvia]

Thank you for the information about the pieces. I feel a bit better knowing i'm not back at Gd1 all over again. I really enjoy playing again and playing those pieces which is the main thing but i will look at the Motivation thread anyway!

[David B]

[Gill the Piano]

There y'are; told you a proper teacher 'd be along to tell you!

[markymark]

Ahem.... thanks, Gill!

Sure Celestite and I said that earlier about trills!

I guess we mustn't be "proper teachers" then, Celestite

[Celestite]

Bummer Tell you what though, Markymark, I bet we have more fun

[Gill the Piano]

Course you're proper teachers; you have that hunted look and The Twitch, don't you?

[Celestite]

I am sure I have no idea what you mean, Gill. I found it a great comfort to sit under my piano sucking my thumb and tugging my ear lobe long before I ever started teaching!

[markymark]

The real trick is refining the whole "look that could kill".

I mean you don't want to over do it and end up withering up a wee child and you don't want to look silly either!

[Celestite]

Oh absolutely. Everything they tell you at teacher training college counts for nothing until you realise the value of the "don't mess with me" look!One of the most phenomenal teachers I ever came across was in one of the roughest schools in the East End of London. She was 5 foot nothing, spoke in a whisper and had cast iron control over the mob but had a look which could shrivel snails. It's 90% in "the look". (The trouble comes when you forget to switch it off and give it to the spouse, oops!)

[Gill the Piano]

My mate has honed and refined her Music Teacher's Stare to such a degree that teenagers simply dissolve under its power. She could now give Paddington's Aunt Lucy a run for her money...

[Celestite]

One of my former school pupils is destined to spend the rest of his life looking like a shrivelled up walnut because of the look he got from me after he had the misfortune to underestimate my warning to the whole class at the begining of term that I have hearing like radar and would hear whatever they said if it was within a ten mile radius of me. Foolish boy REALLY should have known better than to refer to me as an "old dog" just because I was the other side of a closed door! He only made that mistake once!