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→Trill
=== Trill ===
A trill is a quick succession of two notes alternating back and forth. Their timing is not really important, as long as they alternate back and forth very quickly.
1 2 3 4
b--5tr6-----------8--
b--5h6p5h6p5h6p5--8--
A trill is marked in tab with the 'tr' seen above, indicating to alternate between the two notes as fast as possible until the next note or rest. In the above example, you would trill on the E and F notes from beat 1 through 3 but then play the G on beat 4. Note that the 'tr' method of marking trills is preferred to the second example which displays it as a series of hammer-on and pull-offs, which is more difficult to write and rhythmically confusing.
Typically, a trill is performed by using hammer-ons and pull-offs - the legato on the same string ensures the trill is clean without having to worry about a ringing string when alternating strings or synchronizing the left and right hands. The problem is that this limits your trills to 2nds or 3rds, since there is only so much distance your left hand can cover on one string.
Tapping alleviates the distance constraint while maintaining the cleanliness of the single string legato.
Tapping is also an excellent way to perform a trill if you want to change the notes of the trill, say each beat. See the two examples below
1 2 3 4
--t12tr5-t12tr6-t12tr8--t12tr10-
Here the tapped note is constant while the lower note moves upwards. We can put our left hand in 5th position and use the index, middle, and pinky fingers to hold the 5, 6, and 8 frets. For beat 4, we simply slide up with our pinky held on the fret, sliding from fret 8 to 10 and continuing the trill.
1 2 3 4
--t12tr5-t14tr5-t16tr5--t17tr5--
Here the low note is held constant while the tapped note ascends. We just move our right hand up the fretboard each beat.
1 2 3 4
--t17tr5-t16tr6-t14tr8--t12tr10--
Here's a series of trills where both notes change each beat. The low and high notes seem to converge.