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Re: Trill Questions

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-09-04 17:28

In tonal music, barring some really unconventional notation style, a trill normally goes from the printed note to the next higher one in the current key. So a trill on A would normally go to B in C major and to Bb in F major. If the composer wants something other than that, he needs to notate it. The notation sometimes has to be interpreted a little - a natural over a trill on D in an Eb major section would mean to trill a whole step to E natural instead of the Eb native to the key. A tr-b over a D in a piece in G major would indicate a trill from D to Eb instead of the native E natural.

I don't have the part or the score to look at, but it sounds like Giannini is trying to be explicit in music where the key center is maybe ambiguous or he is deliberately muddying up an established tonality. With conventional notation, B tr# should be B-C#. To ask for a half-step trill on B, the composer would call it C and maybe write a natural sign with the trill. You normally trill to the next staff degree (letter name). The rest of your solutions seem (with no context) to be correct. The trill on D# with no chromatic change to the trill ought to be to E natural, unless there's an E# already in effect from a previous change within that measure - that's contextual.

A sharp means trill to the sharp of whatever note is next higher. It will normally result in a whole-step trill where a half-step would have fit the key. Anything larger than a step should normally be notated some other way - as a tremolo between the two pitches involved.

Of course, this is all less obvious when the operating key isn't the one indicated by the key signature (there's been a temporary modulation) or when there is no key center. Then the composer should help in the way that Giannini seems to have. Sometimes, if you check the score, either the harmonic context will clarify the trills or, sometimes, the concert pitch versions when the oboes or flutes are doing the same trills will be clearer. I would say, by the way, that if the music director hasn't given you instructions about the trills before the audition, he should (in an ideal world) only be listening for how cleanly you play the ones you've worked out, not for whether your reading of the intervals matches his/hers.

Good luck!

Karl

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