From Zero to Mozart
Stage 3Score symbolsLesson 30 of 46 · Reading

The trill

A trill (tr) is a fast alternation between the written note and the note above it, for as long as the written note lasts. It's the most common ornament — and it carries one genuine question: which note do you start on?

Reading the symbol

  • tr sits above the note. A trailing wavy line shows how far the trill runs.
  • An accidental above or just after the tr sets the pitch of the upper note — tr with a ♯ means trill up to the sharpened note, not the diatonic one.
  • A small curl of two notes at the end — down to the lower neighbour and back — is the termination (or Nachschlag). It lands the trill cleanly onto the next note. Sometimes it's written out; often it's just expected.

As printed

80 bpm
A trill on the held B. On the page that's all you get — 'tr'. What you actually play depends on the era.

Baroque — start above

80 bpm
The B trill realised the Baroque way: begin on the upper note, C. C.P.E. Bach, Marpurg and Türk all taught that every trill starts above — it works as a little dissonance resolving down onto the main note.

Classical / modern — start on the note

80 bpm
The same trill begun on the written B. Hummel codified this in 1828, and it's the default many players carry today — partly because it's simply easier under the hand.

It depends on the era

EraStart the trill on…
Baroquethe upper note — always
Classicalmixed — in transition through the 1790s; the note, the harmony and the edition all weigh in
Romantic and afterthe written note (Hummel's rule)

A tr on a Mozart note is genuinely ambiguous — and deciding is a real interpretive choice. This is the clearest place in the whole stage where "read it" and "play it in the right style" pull apart.

Try it

Try

On a note you can hold, trill slowly first — just the note and its upper neighbour, back and forth, dead even. Then let it speed up only as far as it stays even. A slow clean trill beats a fast ragged one every time.

The usual mistake

Cramming in as many notes as possible — a trill is a shimmer, and evenness matters more than count. Forgetting the termination when the style asks for one. And the big one: playing a Baroque trill from the main note out of modern habit, when it should almost always begin above.