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My orchestra recently added Shubert's "Unfinished Symphony # 8 in B Minor" (1st movement) to our repertoire. I have been practicing the piece both with the orchestra and alone at home. Throughout the piece there are quite a few notes (mostly quarter notes) denoted as to be played tremolo. What confuses me is that some are marked with two slashes through the stem and others are marked with three slashes. Where I am facing some confusion is how are these to be played differently ? Do I sustaiin the not longer if it has three as opposed to two slashes or, do I play a faster tremolo if/when i see three slashes as opposed to two.
I would appreciate if Fiddlerman or anyone can explain this. Also if ther are any good tremolo tutorial videos or videos showing the different notation and how the tremolo is performed would be a great help.
Much thanks
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Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that one slash means to play two notes, two slashes means to play four notes, three slashes means to play eight notes, etc. The note value (quarter, half, etc) is divided into the number of notes indicated by the slashes. Assuming the slashes are placed on a quarter note, then one slash means two eighth notes, two slashes means four sixteenth notes, three slashes means eight thirty-second notes. One slash on a half note would be two quarters, two slashes on a half note would be four eighths, three slashes on a half would be eight sixteenths.
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Well, that sounds about right. From what I've read online it seems that your description is correct. Fortunately I have orchestra rehearsal tonight so I will try putting the question to one of the violinists in our violin section.
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1 slash means to play eighth notes, 2 slashes means to play 16th notes and 3 can mean either 32 notes or tremolo. 
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Fiddlerman said
1 slash means to play eighth notes, 2 slashes means to play 16th notes and 3 can mean either 32 notes or tremolo.
Ah, Thank you... That clears up some of the confusion I was having regarding the number of slashes that appear. Now I need to spend some time in practice 
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