Lesson 27: Ornamentation Basics — Trills

• Alternate smoothly between a note and the next higher note of its key.
• Play the written trill in Telemann’s lower Soave excerpt.

Keep the beat as the fingers alternate.

A trill alternates a note with its next higher neighbour in the key. These drills start above and end with a turn below; styles vary.

Trill at a cadence

A cadence is a phrase ending; trill on the note before the final note.

Play: Telemann, TWV 40:101 — lower Soave excerpt

In 3/8, count three eighth notes per bar; fit the trill inside its dotted eighth without delaying the next note.

First duet part, down a fourth, adapted from Gavioli (2020), CC BY-SA 3.0; second part, slurs and articulation omitted.

Now play these

Au clair de la lune

Hold the low note and count the phrase-ending rests.

Ode to Joy — complete Chubb hymn

Keep the bridge’s eighth notes even.

Later study after Lesson 50: compare the written trills in Telemann’s complete Soave.

When the written trill and its following notes keep an even pulse, move on to Lesson 28.