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Lip trills are a must for any hornist playing on the level to perform a Mozart concerto movement.
Spoiler alert: Lip trills are easier on the natural horn
Before getting to the topic of how to work on lip trills, it is important to note that, speaking very generally lip trills are easier to play on the natural horn. Especially so on one that is reasonably authentic with a mouthpiece of a design that is plausible for the 19th century or before. Why? A period instrument is less “slotty,” more flexible. Lip trills are very idiomatic for the instrument of the time of Mozart, and are more of a challenge for us on modern horns today.
For those that teach: Don’t project your issues on your students
There is a quote in the Douglas Hill book (which is the source of our list of fundamentals driving this series) in the chapter on teaching, related to his teacher demonstrating a trill (page 67). It is an important point to consider:
My first teacher … kept his attitudes about the difficulties of the horn to himself. While in high school, I was learning a Mozart concerto and needed to know how to play a lip trill. He demonstrated one with very little fanfare, and I returned the next week performing lip trills with ease, which is the only way they can be produced.
PSA: Use a fingering that will work for whole step trills
The main thing is to understand the harmonic series enough to find a fingering where both notes of your whole step trill can be played on the same fingering.
What about half step trills?
Those are always fingered! Yay!
I’m not a fan of the “Kopprasch” exercise
Honestly, I think trills are over taught. It may be a function of how lessons work. Something comes up, teacher assigns exercises, etc.
One of the main exercises we have all tried is the one in the Kopprasch book. I don’t think it is a very good exercise, it ties you up in knots. Instead, you are better off with a different approach
Cross train to build the skill
The most effective way to learn trills is by working on fast lip flexibility exercises. I have some favorites I give to students, there are good ones in The Brass Gym, etc. But overall, you are best not practicing trills but to instead practice fast flexibility studies. This also may be getting at why Hill mentions lip tremolos; those end up being really fast flexibility studies, and set you up for playing trills.
When the series returns the topic is another favorite, stopped horn
Continue reading Fundamentals series
