Video on Vibrato and Lip Trills, include their relationship to each other

[davewerden]

I'm posting this in the private section for now - it is not yet public on YouTube. Forum members get a sneak preview! Once I publish it, I'll move this thread to the public area or blog.

In this I discuss three types of vibrato. But I focus on lip vibrato. Then I discuss lip trills, and the way lip vibrato and lip trills work together (no kidding!).

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyIZWoqmhKo

Or watch with the embedded video below:

[ChristianeSparkle]

Thank you for such an information video! It cleared some things for me, though I also ended up having some questions in regards to lip trills, as Google didn't really give me any results for "trill on the Euphonium", specifically valve trills. So back in school, I was taught to just alternate between the note written and a semi-tone up or down by just using the valve. Now I am wondering if that's a legitimate way of doing a trill?

Is there a way of discerning whether a a particular piece demands a lip trill (with a larger interval between the 2 notes), and the semi-tone up/down valve trill?

Example would be Oregon



All of us just used the half semitone up, or down to do it. Now I'm wondering if it would have been better to do a lip trill instead? How do I discern when is appropriate for a lip trill?

Thank you again for the video! Another skill to add to my daily practices that I've never paid attention to before this.

[RickF]

Excellent video Dave. I did spot one error in your text on trilling a minor third. For TC the notes were E to G not D to G. That was around 12:45.

Christiane, in your example in Oregon I would trill to the next note above staying in the key signature - which would be a whole step not semitone... except for the E to F which is half step. But, maybe I'm wrong.

[John Morgan]

Thank you for such an information video! It cleared some things for me, though I also ended up having some questions in regards to lip trills, as Google didn't really give me any results for "trill on the Euphonium", specifically valve trills. So back in school, I was taught to just alternate between the note written and a semi-tone up or down by just using the valve. Now I am wondering if that's a legitimate way of doing a trill?

Is there a way of discerning whether a a particular piece demands a lip trill (with a larger interval between the 2 notes), and the semi-tone up/down valve trill?

Example would be Oregon

[ATTACH=CONFIG]7084[/ATTACH]

All of us just used the half semitone up, or down to do it. Now I'm wondering if it would have been better to do a lip trill instead? How do I discern when is appropriate for a lip trill?

Thank you again for the video! Another skill to add to my daily practices that I've never paid attention to before this.

Trill within the key signature. There are actually two different trills in the excerpt. The one with the E natural should be trilled up to an F, a semi-tone. The one(s) with the Bb should be trilled up to a C, a whole tone.

To figure out whether or not to use the valves to trill or the lip, depends on the context and the particular notes. If you watch Dave's video above, you will see how he handles a trill on an F above the staff. That particular trill is in the music near the end of David's Trombone Concertino. A trill from an F to a G, followed by two grace notes (E natural and F) then up to a high C. Trombone players pretty much all use a lip trill there. How they enter the trill is interesting in many cases, too, but I will focus on euphonium. I played this on euphonium and went back and forth with using valves (a slower trill to play the F and G distinctly) and lip trills. Trying to lip trill from an open F, doesn't give me good results. You end up going from an F to a flat Ab, too big of an interval. You can do it, but it just doesn't sound quite right. So, I either trilled using 1+3 or 4. The upper note in that lip trill sounds pretty close to a G with the alternate fingering, which is the note it should sound like.

Another example of a trill comes at the end of Morceau Symphonique. There is a trill from a D above the staff to an Eb (because we are in the key of Eb). A lip trill here would not work on a D, because you would be trilling from a D to an F. So, I use 1+2 to play the D and trill up to Eb (1st valve). So the trill goes 1+2 to 1 to 1+2 to 1 and so on. That works out very well. I add a little ornamentation to get into the trill by playing an Eb first, hold it just a wee bit, then commence with the trill. I also end the trill on a D and play this open, so a little bit of coordination has to happen to move from the 1+2 D to an open D at the end. To me, the open D sounds better than a D held with 1+2. Of course, you can also trill from an open D to a 1st valve Eb. This works fine as well, I just happen to like using 1+2 for the D and trilling by using the 2nd valve. These are all fine points, but the lesson here is that you have to approach each of these and other trills with a little bit of thought and strategy in how you are going to tackle them. It is sort of fun to experiment with different fingerings and the like to figure out what works best. Always try to make it musical, in any event.

To figure out if you should do a lip trill or a trill with the valves, a couple things to keep in mind. Look at the trill, figure out what note you trill to (it is usually always the next note in the scale of the key signature you are playing in). Try a lip trill from the starting note and see what note you play going up to the very next closest note. If it is the note you should be playing (or very close to it intonation wise), then you can lip trill. If you want to use a lip trill, but the note you lip trill to is too far away from the note it should be, then try alternate fingerings to see if you can use the alternate fingering for the starting note and the note you trill to. If this works, you can use a lip trill. If the lip trill doesn't work for regular fingerings or alternate fingerings, then you are stuck with using the valves for the trill. If regular valve fingerings don't work right (like in the case of trilling from open F above the staff to G), then try alternate fingerings. If you end up having a choice of using valves or lip trilling (because both work effectively for the particular trill), I would usually choose valves. Because it is probably easier and might sound a trifle cleaner with valves. Unless you have some wonky valve trill that uses tough fingerings. Even with that advice, I might use a lip trill in some cases because it sounds sort of cool if you can do a really fast lip trill in lieu of the valves.

[davewerden]

Excellent video Dave. I did spot one error in your text on trilling a minor third. For TC the notes were E to G not D to G. That was around 12:45.

Thanks, Rick! You are correct, and by looking into this I see I uploaded the wrong version of the video (the mistake was in both, though). I have corrected it, and I'm preparing the new version. In it, I cut out about a minute of unnecessary babble (I always make short stories long!).

[davewerden]

Regarding trills, check out your Arban book. There is a nice section on trills in there.

[davewerden]

Links above are updated to the new video now. Thanks again, Rick!

[John Morgan]

Example would be Oregon

[ATTACH=CONFIG]7084[/ATTACH]

Here is a good example of choosing a lip trill vs a valve trill. The trill on the Bb goes to C. If you try to use the valves and trill from an open horn to 1st valve and back and forth, as you speed up, it gets a little raggedy. It is more difficult when using the valves to trill a whole tone distance than a half tone distance. So, in this case, if you use an alternate fingering of 1+4 to play the Bb, you can lip trill pretty effectively. The upper note is sharper than the necessary C, but at speed it is not very discernable.

[davewerden]

Good point, John. The Bb-C trill for me is dicey with normal fingerings, but I try to do it that way. The dicey-ness can vary slightly from instrument to instrument, but not by much. In my realm, I consider it a doable trill. But up a major third, trilling D to E natural, that seems to be just a bit out of reach, so I use 24 (or 123) and lip trill. It would not surprise me to learn that some players have no trouble on the D trill, though.

[ChristianeSparkle]

Thank you everyone, especially Mr. Morgan! I never thought there was so much to think about and pay attention when it comes to trilling. I've taken a look at Arban's Trill section... and I have to admit I've never took a good look at it as I kept telling myself I need to focus on the more basic stuff in the book until I feel competent enough.

[John Morgan]

Thank you everyone, especially Mr. Morgan! I never thought there was so much to think about and pay attention when it comes to trilling. I've taken a look at Arban's Trill section... and I have to admit I've never took a good look at it as I kept telling myself I need to focus on the more basic stuff in the book until I feel competent enough.

A little more on lip trilling. I look at this skill kind of like double- and triple-tonguing in that you literally have to practice this continually and for a long time to get the speed, accuracy, exactness, etc. And to get the "ka" syllable to sound exactly like the "ta" syllable. There are many ways to practice, the Arban book is a good one. I also practice playing just the "ka" syllable on the tonguing exercises. But I digress, this is about lip trills.

Just to show that the process of learning to lip trill takes an abundance of time, like becoming highly proficient at multiple tonguing.

What I use to get my lip trilling up to speed (very fast), and as a daily warmup, is that I start on an F in the staff and trill that (to a Bb) maybe half a dozen times, then go up chromatically and trill each note all the way up to the F above the staff. As you go up, the trill interval gets smaller, and somewhat easier. Then trill back down chromatically. Try using alternate fingerings as well. It did take me some time to really get these up to speed. Eventually you end up being able to go very fast and quite suitable for use in most musical passages calling for trills.

I also work on lip trills above the F above the staff in the same manner, by starting on the F above the staff, and going up to around high Bb. You usually don't see trills this high, but it doesn't hurt to have this ability.

As for the actual slurring of the lip trill, you can do it as an up down up down up down type of action, but I also found something a long time ago that helped me get faster. That was to practice the trill as if it were a triplet with accents on the 1st note of each triplet. In other words, say on a trill from middle Bb to D, think of Bb-D-Bb / D-Bb-D / etc. Group the notes in three's and lightly accent the first note in each group of three. This allowed me to speed up the trill, and when you can do it fast, it won't sound like triplets.

[jkircoff]

Another fine video Dave. I'd only suggest that you'd spend some time talking about the quality of air and how you control that stream via the oral cavity to achieve the fast trills you demonstrate.

[davewerden]

Another fine video Dave. I'd only suggest that you'd spend some time talking about the quality of air and how you control that stream via the oral cavity to achieve the fast trills you demonstrate.

Thanks for the suggestion. It's a good one, but I don't plan to re-record the video.

There is a reason I did not go into those details, though. For this particular set of skills, I mostly figured them out on my own. At the time I started working with lip trills I followed the same process I described in the video. No one had taught me about air stream or oral cavity considerations, so I don't tend to associate that focus with learning the skills I discussed.