I am having big problem with the three. I have a recite in a month [or two?..] and I'm playing a Bach piece that has a quite a few trills [for a whole section the left hand plays only trills X_X]. I'm not having much problem but the stand alone, extravagant, "OMG POMPUS ROCOCO TIME" type trills that you need to wiz through really fast. Does anyone have any drills thats one would recommend for finger dexterity for such thing??

if i were you i'd practice it slowly until i got comfortable with the keys then from there i'd increase the tempo

pm me your email address i have some several exercies sheets that might help..

Not drills, but for the actual trilling, if you're not doing this already, relax your left *shoulder* area, and think a bit of trilling with your wrist (i.e. rotate your hand a little while trilling...too much finger movement will result in bad..ness)

Try different trill fingerings as well. The most common fingering is the 2-3 trill, but see if stuff like 2-1 and 3-1 work as well...

can you scan a copy of the passage in here?

Well, I don't really think I need to scan it, but its written out in quotes at the side as being six 32nd's, up down up down down up. So short, but the tempo of the song already is fast...

Keep your hand motion small. Isn't your piano teacher helping you on this? If you're goin' it solo, maybe Bach's not a great choice, eh?

Trill for starting 1-2 mins a day. Then build up another 10 or 15 secs every few days.

I've gotten as far as a 6 min trill. My tip is to ignore any pain and DO NOT straighten out your arm and wrist--you enflame your carpel-tunnel that way. Keep your wrist bent, and dynamics come with your speed; not pressure. I learned that the hard way (many a cramp--Lol).

If you need more explanation, tell me.

(I'm trying to get together an exercise/technique/etudes book, soez.)

Thanks for the tips.

You should get "HANON", a collection of great finger exercises for all kinds of techniques... and a lot of trills! :)

Haha...I remember Hanon. They were....can't quite put a word on it...

But Hanon is nevertheless a pretty useful technique-building book...

Not drills, but for the actual trilling, if you're not doing this already, relax your left *shoulder* area, and think a bit of trilling with your wrist (i.e. rotate your hand a little while trilling...too much finger movement will result in bad..ness)

Try different trill fingerings as well. The most common fingering is the 2-3 trill, but see if stuff like 2-1 and 3-1 work as well...

can you scan a copy of the passage in here?

Seconded on the 3-1. Trilling with non-adjacent fingers is much easier and much faster. Only do adjacent fingers if your other fingers have to be doing other things.

Warning: Using the wrists tends to introduce a little bit of unevenness into the trill because it's harder to time the rotations precisely. The majority of the trill still should be with the fingers, since you have more control over them--something to do with the size of the muscles controlling the movement in the finger as opposed to the hand/wrist. By all means use rotation on the trill; just don't rely solely on it...go for the middle path ;)