The standard trilling technique used by most touchstyle players is to alternate fingers on a single string (usually 1, 2, 1, 2 etc., I believe). The technique I use plays the same pitch on two adjacent strings, by stretching up six frets (a fourth, because the treble strings are tuned in fourths). Use your first finger to play the highest string and your pinky to play the lower string. Don't bother to count the frets, just position your first finger on a string fairly far up the neck, and then move your pinky up the string just below it until you're playing the same note. If you try to play this pattern too far down the neck, it will be too long a stretch, and if you play too far up it will be hard to get a good tone, so play somewhere near the upper quarter of the neck.

Once you have found the unison, hit the two notes one after the other slowly, adjusting your fingering until they play cleanly in tune. Because this is a new hand position it will be hard at first to play in tune, even if your strings are tuned correctly. Eventually you will get a "beating" sound like a chorus effect. This means that the strings are close but not quite in tune. As you adjust your touch, the beating will slow down until it disappears completely. Now try moving the whole pattern up two frets and play it again. Alternate between the two fret positions, preferably playing with a metronome so that each note gets two clicks from the metronome. This pattern would thus be something like A (first string), A (second string); B (first string), B (second string). Do this slowly until all notes sound in tune.

Now try playing an entire scale with this pattern. You might want to start with practicing playing an entire scale with only your first finger, and then adding the unison double with the pinky once you've mastered that. You can then add slow variations, like playing the two unisons in different rhythms, or sliding into the pinky note then letting it ring while you play the other one.

This technique creates a ringing bell-like tone that can't be duplicated on any other instrument, but has much the same impact as a hammer dulcimer or a mandolin. It's also possible to play much faster trills than you can with the standard touchstyle trilling technique. (At least I've never heard anyone play trills as fast as mine using the standard technique, and I have heard a lot of touchstyle players say that you can't play single note trills on a touchstyle instrument). The challenge with this technique is that everytime you play a trill you have to change your fingering to this full hand stretch. However, the differences in tone and speed makes it well worth it, as far as I'm concerned.

This article first appeared in the October 1996 issue of the "TouchStyle Quarterly."

For more articles by Teed go to his web site.