Trills

[gylfih]

Hi guys, I was wondering if you know of any exercises for building up trills. One of my pieces that I'll be playing for my music exam has a lot of them and I just can't seem to get smooth trills. I think it might be a finger strength issue, but trills on 4 and 5 are ok, it's on 1 and 3/2 and 3 that they're rubbish. I listen to the great pianists like Horowitz and Gould, and even JR and they're all so smooth and effortless.
Any way I can build mine up? Any help would be appreciated.

[Bigs]

You should make the motion using your wirst, not using your fingers. Feels weird at first, but it's a lot smoother once you get used to the motion.

[gylfih]

You're right, it does feel weird. It just feels a bit wrong but I'll keep trying it.

[eric13579]

I personally add a small bit of wrist movement when trilling with thumb and index/middle but the majority of the movement come from the fingers.

Most of the advice I got regarding trills are pretty much the same as practicing many other techniques. Fire up your metronome at a speed where you're comfortable to trill at and increase the speed as it gets better. Just remember that your wrist and arm should be loose at all times, and if they even begin to tense up, stop immediately and take a break (or play something less physically demanding if you don't want to stop).

Unfortunately trills are one of the many things that takes a lot of patience to get good at and there's no easy way around it.