String Trills and Tremolos Physical Limitations

Trills and tremolos on string instruments can create fantastic shimmery effects or create a feeling of tension and unease. Both are of course part of the most fundamental playing techniques for these instruments and every string sample library nowadays includes them.

However, when making the transition to real players there is a fundamental problem that is often overlooked by inexperienced orchestrators and composers:

It can become physically impossible to execute these playing techniques over a longer period of time. While it is not extremely likely to have overly long trill passages, it can be very likely to write endless tremolo passages in "suspense cues" without any breaks and especially when you record several such cues in succession in a scoring session, it will very likely lead to your musicians asking for a break.

Of course it can be imagined that this technique will simply tire the muscles involved leading to lesser control of the notes at first and consequentially physical impossibility to play these techniques any longer. Loud and tight tremolos (meaning that you play them by repeating the notes particularly fast) are more tiresome than loose and soft tremolos but all of them will become physically impossible after a while.

With trills, any dynamic is equally tiresome.

In general, any sequences that request either trills or tremolos for longer than 30 seconds should be considered as potentially problematic and should be handled with extra care. Of course, you should ask yourself whether it is necessary to request this playing technique over such lengths or whether the desired effect can be reached in other ways.

If there is no way around extensive trill/tremolo passages, take special care when planning the recording order of the cues to isolate these passages as much as possible between cues that are physically not as demanding or schedule them after breaks etc.

It also helps from a psychological standpoint to give the players a heads-up on such cues to show that you understand that they are demanding and didn't just mindlessly write a piece to torture them for no reason. When in doubt about where to place such cues and whether they are problematic, don't hesitate to consult with your concert master or first chairs of the sections in question how you can make their lives easier regarding recording order and listen to their concerns.