What is the effect called when....?

Question

you play trills with your hands as much as possible inside the keyboard and it almost sounds like the notes are trembling. It's soft and it's like holding a chord or an octave. I see people doing it while playing octaves and it sounds really nice. Nelson Freire did that somewhere I think.

YEA YEA, it's tremolo. I remember my teacher telling me about it. THANKS REDEEMER. Now, second question:
How clear should a tremolo be? Is it normal to miss notes in it?

I mean the same notes; i don't mean mistakes. I mean missing some of them. In a C octave playing the high C twice. Is that going to effect the tremolo a lot.

Isn't the beginning of Ondine somewhat a tremolo by itself.

I forgot to use question marks and it's to affect. SORRY.

Answer 1

Toutvas has described the two most disperate registrations of the effect beautifully. With regard to 'Ondine' from Gaspard, the extremes of difficulty there are precisely that the effect should evoke that of the finest tremolando, while the technical resources called upon are, completely counter-intuitively, those of interrupted repetition, instead of the repeated alternation along the central wrist axis that makes up a tremol(and)o. Ravel is harking back in this regard -- counter-intuitiveness -- to the astonishing feats of 'jeu de bravoure' (*not* 'bravura') of the 1830s and 1840s, particularly espoused by the master pianists and pianist-composers populating Paris at that time.

Answer 2

Tremolos should be clear - you shouldn't be playing notes other than what is written on the page (i.e. an octave with a trem. symbol, there should only be the lower and upper notes sounding).

Answer 3

I think you're talking about a tremolo. That effect is very brooding!

Answer 4

in the upper register it should sound like a shimmering effect in the lower range like the rumble of an approaching earthquake or truck

Answer 5

It sounds like you're talking about vibrato.