Oboe Trills - How To Play Them

Trills are one of the most common 'ornaments' in music. They are extra notes which add interest to a tune. It is important to know how to play trills if you are to perform music correctly. There are a number of issues associated with oboe trills, both musical and technical. I have itemised these below.

- What does a trill look like? Trills are normally written as "tr" over the note to be trilled. In the case of a long note this "tr" may have a wiggly line after it.

- What do you do when you find a trill written in the music? All you do is alternate quickly between the written note and the note above; - think of the wiggly line I mentioned above. This process is obviously done slurred and not tongued. If the "tr" has an accidental marked either above or after it, this affects the note you are trilling to and not the written note.

- There are places on the oboe where it is impossible, for one reason or another, to perform a trill effectively. One of these is across the break between the lower and upper register. To use the normal fingering would require flapping 5 or 6 fingers simultaneously. So how do we get around this? For this we have to thank the developers of the oboe over the years who have added to the instrument special keys which enable us to perform oboe trills in this area with relative ease.

- Exactly which of these keys you have available will depend on the make and type of instrument you are playing. Let's look first at the notes we might need to trill which are impossible without trill keys. The trills between C & D, B & C# and C & Db are all across the break of the instrument. To overcome the problem here all oboes are equipped with appropriate trill keys.

- On a student oboe the D trill key (C-D change) will probably be found on the top joint for use with the left hand. On more advanced instruments you will probably have another D trill key for use with the right hand too. B - C# or C - Db trill on a student instrument will usually have to be done by trilling with the first finger of the left hand, whereas more advanced instruments have a second trill key for the left hand on the same bit of key work as the D trill key. Consult a fingering chart to see exactly where these particular keys are on your oboe. It is a bit hard to actually describe positioning in an article.

- One other issue where special fingerings are required is where a trill would normally involve trilling with the thumb. This is not advisable as the thumb is rather hefty for such delicate work. To overcome this, trilling is either done with the side key (banana key as it is often known, - for obvious reasons) which you will find under the curve of your right index finger, or, if you have a Conservatoire or Gillet system, you would trill with the first finger of the right hand. These fingerings will give a much smoother and more controlled trill than using your thumb.

- There are one or two other places where oboe trills require alternative fingerings. A trill between F & G is performed by trilling with just the first finger of the right hand and keeping the other fingers still. This applies for Forked-F fingering too. The trill from Ab to Bb is achieved on an open-holed oboe by trilling with the banana key again and on the covered-hole system by trilling with the left hand middle finger. If you are faced with a trill from C# to D# the procedure here is to hold down the left hand D# key whilst trilling with the right hand C# key. This is not the easiest of manoeuvres as little finger trills are always a bit tricky.

These are the main alternative fingerings that we use to perform oboe trills. There are a number of other alternative fingerings on the oboe which we use in very specific situations at the extreme ranges of the oboe. I have not dealt with them here. Trills are not particularly difficult if you know how to do them correctly.