Bach's doublestop gypsy trill

Late at night, sight reading a Bach Cello suite on violin, this is what I came up with when I saw an G natural and C# to D natural doublestop. It's a variant on the gypsy trill that involves more perpendicular motion of the wrist from the strings, but still uses a similar rocking motion for tight trills that don't require me to lift my finger at the knuckle.

To do a gypsy trill as I'm doing in this clip, one locks their third finger a set distance above the string (in this case on the G natural), and does a rocking vibrato with their second finger (which would be holding down the C#). Another way to describe what's happening is that the second finger functions like a fulcrum to the pivoting motion.

Back to Bach, I'm not sure if this is the right way to go about the trill in the suite, and I'm open to pointers.

Recorded on an LG8300 cell phone camera (laying on its side), which may explain sideways video and video/audio quality.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Bach
• Trill Variations
• Violin

[OfGreatLakes]

@magicalmerk Haha, I agree! After some rumination since I posted this video, I think Bach would have retorted with "try playing it on a cello instead!" It's been a while Magicalmerk, but thanks for checking out my video! I've only seen a few of your videos, but I enjoyed the story-telling quality of your musical ventures.

[OfGreatLakes]

I figured it out--since the suite was originally for cello, cellists have a lot more room on the fingerboard to deal with, so it's likely that one finger would creep from behind the other to do the trill (imagine 1st held down, second doing the trill, while 3rd holding the note adjacent. I'll post a better video if I get around to finding a decent camera again--hopefully I'll be more awake and in practice at that time too!

[magicalmerk]

interesting............it'd be nice to be able to ask Bach "what do you want me to do here???"