Recently the idea of writing an essay called Trills came to my mind. First, it seemed like a cool title. Secondly, I like trills in music. If those are not sufficient reasons, I thought someone might misread the title as Thrills, and become doubly interested in reading the post!
So Trills it is. Now, I just need content.
What can one say about trills? A lot, as it turns out. Outside of music, the word “trills” evokes the expansive subject of birdcalls (tweets, trills, and warbles). Sadly, a child can grow up in today’s loud, asphalt-covered world fully unaware of the intricate way birds construct the rhythmic and melodic content of their vocabularies.
Composers, though, have taken note of birdcalls. Some have used birdcalls as a primary inspiration for their music, particularly the revolutionary French genius Oliver Messiaen (1908-1992) who studied birdcalls at a scientific level, absorbing them into his palate of sounds and even notating details of specific species within his musical scores.
Maurice Ravel, another brilliant French composer, dazzled his audiences with the musical evocation of birdcalls at times also. One of my favorite pieces by Ravel is a delicate movement called “Oiseaux tristes” (Sad Birds) from his utterly gorgeous piano suite Miroirs (1905). So bird trills really do lead directly into trills within a musical score.
In music, a trill functions as a simple way to ornament or decorate a note in a melodic line. Trills serve to make notes more important, adding beauty or gravitas to whatever note is embellished. The mechanics of a musical trill involve quick oscillation between two pitches that generally lie close to one another along the musical scale (although not always)
In terms of duration, a trill can be short—a flip between notes—or extended to become a significant textural feature. In addition to their decorative affect, trills increase a melody’s rhythmic energy. You can experiment with this energy yourself, trilling your voice between two notes (da-dee, da-dee, da-dee, da), first slowly, and then ever more quickly. Perhaps such trills gave rise to the original tongue-twisters?
Sometimes, though, a trill can exist without connections to a melody. A composer can decide to place trills as a sonorous background to other musical content. Generally such trills provide a sweet or pleasant effect, but in certain cases, background trills create an unstable, disturbing, even frightening atmosphere. We hear this kind of trill often in film scores. But remember that the idea of trills conveying “scariness” or “anxiety” goes much farther back in time.
One example I like to use of a terrifying trill occurs near the end of Richard Strauss’s radical opera Salome (1905), when the titular character, against the background of a high trill, sings a lavishly beautiful, romantic aria . . . to the bloody head of John the Baptist. Yuck is right.
Another of my favorite trills comes in Franz Waxman’s phenomenal film score to the movie Sunset Boulevard (1950), when the aging actress played by Gloria Swanson rises during one of the eerily habitual domestic screenings of her now-obsolete films, shakes her fist, and rails against the ineptitude of the beautiful young actresses who have usurped her fame.
But back to trills used to ornament a melody. Abundant use of trills (or the lack thereof) helps to define certain stylistic eras in music. One such era we call The Baroque—a period of approximately 150 years starting around 1600 that, in many of those decades, witnessed the liberal application of trills to melodic lines.
Certain instruments are particularly good at playing trills, such as the flute. In fact, if I say the word “trill” to a flute player, his mind switches immediately to the richly ornamented melodies written by Baroque composers like Johann Sebastian Bach or Jean-Philippe Rameau. (Ahah! another Frenchman.) These decorative trills matched up perfectly with that era’s high-piled powdered wigs, low-cut brocade gowns, spider-web crystal chandeliers, and chubby gold-leafed nymphs dangling over the lintels in the ubiquitous ballroom named “Hall of Mirrors.” If I keep this up, next thing you know I will plunge into writing a musicological article with the title “Stylistic Qualities of the Baroque Trill in Northern Germanic Courts between 1680 and 1730”!
Instead, I will confess my true purpose. I have taken up the topic of trills as a foil to remind myself, and you, that the impulse to decorate exists as one our basic human drives. If you doubt this, hand any three-year old child a book of stickers and see what happens.
No, the child is not trying to annoy. Rather, papering every available surface with stickers is a testament to our God-given, innate desire to make the world more beautiful. So, too, is the impulse of a wood-worker who crafts patterns within an otherwise plain fence gate. So too is the decision of a mom to arrange zinnias from the garden on the hall table, or don a floral headband to perk up an otherwise plain go-to-market dress.
So, if you want to experience trills as handled by composers, investigate the composers I’ve mentioned. Or you can give yourself a treat by experiencing a recent work by a fine British composer named Peter Meechan. Just this week I had the privilege of interviewing Meechan in anticipation of the opening of the Dallas Winds’s new season. I’m struck by the overall beauty and magnificence of his music, including the way he uses (you’ve guessed it) trills as a sonorous element of color. As an example, consider acquainting yourself with his 2016 work Renaissance of Wonder (beautiful title, right?) for solo trumpet and ensemble and listen to how he employs trills, beginning with a dramatic moment at approximately 1:19 in this performance.
There, I did it. Trills. Perhaps we didn’t quite make it to the height of “thrills,” but you never know. Consider adding a few trills to your daily life. Trill while you walk, sing, or hum. And maybe you can find a spot where it is possible to listen to the astonishing embellishments of a bird’s complex language, a decoration of our daily life that can bring wonder and joy.
