Anyone like to improvise?

Hi. I have always had a desire to be able to sit at the piano and just play - without knowing what I will play. It seems to be a daunting task, but since I found a great teacher who was classically trained before becoming a professional jazz pianist, I have made some progress. When I don’t feel like practicing I sit at the piano and play a simple chord sequence - for example Fm7, Bbm7, Cm7, Fm7 - and find notes and phrases that sound good to me.

 

Does anyone else improvise or plan to learn how to? It would be good to share ideas.

32 replies

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    • Unfrozen Barroom Piano Player
    • Peter_G
    • 2 wk ago
    • Reported - view

    Improvising has been my main way of playing the piano for my whole life.  I'd love to know what other folks are doing on ToneBase with improvisation, and to trade notes, ideas, comments and performances.  

    I play mostly standards and pop tunes, but nothing's safe from my giving it a try.  Here are a few samples of my playing that I've used in some ToneBase events.

    Heart and Soul (Hoagy Carmichael)  (with some help from Herman's Hermits):

    https://youtu.be/MoouZkDanek

    Bewitched  (Rodgers and Hart)  from a ToneBase Halloween Community Concert (in which I'm experimenting with trying to incorporate a riff from the F# minor Fugue from Book 2 of the Well Tempered Clavier that I was working on at the time, as well as to quote a riff from a piece that one of the other Tonebase participants was working on) :

    https://youtu.be/9X73-B607xg

    Sleigh Ride (Leroy Anderson & Mitchell Parish)  - as recorded for a ToneBase Winter holiday concert:

    https://youtu.be/AWuTHCdvgpA

    I have hundreds of audio only recordings that I've made over the years.  Just starting to experiment with video after joining ToneBase.  the App I'm using is LumaFusion - it's very inexpensive and allows you to include fade in and out of up to 6 different video sources if you can find enough devices to film them.

      • Mark_Cooper
      • 8 days ago
      • Reported - view

       

      my contribution to noodling around on C major 6-2-5-1 progression 

      the V chord I either play conventional rootless voicing and play myxolydian or bebop scale , or altered dominant voicing where I would use the G dominant altered scale which is the same as Aflat melodic minor but started on G

      for the V1 chord it’s mostly altered dominant , using the altered dominant scale , which is actually the same as Bflat ascending melodic minor but starting on A ( I think you use that Bflat melodic minor)

      in general I try not to think of playing scales but rather choosing appropriate notes 

      interesting you use the d melodic minor , it gives a slightly ‘out’ feel which is nice , I guess the Csharp in that scale if used over the G dominant chord results in a Lydian dominant scale 

      I try to use chromatic approaches as much as possible and I’ve thrown in there a few learned licks 

       

      Noodling on C major 6-2-5-1

       

      https://youtu.be/G9iaaZu8M7o?si=87EjxaYInbZn7MXO

      • Ken_Radford
      • 7 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Nice noodling Mark. Your left hand supports your right very well, and I like the scales you use. I am struggling to get away from my natural instinct to fix the LH rhythm to a set pattern - rather to have the LH adapt to support the RH, which is what you do.

      You are right about the leading tone in the JMM scale sounding a bit “out”. When I started using it (the C# in D JMM for example) I used to wince 😬 only to have my teacher tell me that “it’s because you’re not used to hearing it.” He was right of course and I no longer wince when I hear it: I have graduated to wincing at other things.

      • Mark_Cooper
      • 5 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Hi Ken

      i thought of a useful exercise for us , and anyone else who might be interested 

      since we both noodled around in C major 2-5-1-6 , why don’t we do the same in all 12 keys? 
      say one key per month going around the circle of 5ths , posting our progress along the way 

      if we are ambitious we could do the minor keys concurrently, or alternatively in the following cycle 

      what do you think ?

      • Ken_Radford
      • 4 days ago
      • Reported - view

       I think it’s a great idea. Mark. Clockwise or anti-clockwise?

      • Mark_Cooper
      • 4 days ago
      • Reported - view

       I prefer C to F to Bflat etc I guess that’s anticlockwise

      perhaps just major keys to begin 

      we can do the minor ones later but up to you 

      • Ken_Radford
      • 4 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Deal. Anticlockwise it is. I am happy to do the relative minor as well. Why don’t we finish off this month with the ii-v-i in A minor before moving on to F Major and D minor next month.

      • Mark_Cooper
      • 4 days ago
      • Reported - view

       didn’t think of that ! The relative minor , makes sense.

      ok we will do A minor before the end of the month 

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