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.
9 replies
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My son, improvises often and as a result many of his compositions have an improvisitory feel to them. In fact, one reason we ended up with his current teacher was because he wanted to learn historical improvisation and we found his teacher through that search. I don't improvise... yet.
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HI Ken -- I started improvising after I had learned enough theory and had tried to learn some pieces by ear (in my case they happened to be in F or E-flat major, so I got familiar with progressions in those keys) and actually the theory cemented when I learned a few Beatles songs on both guitar and piano. Anyway, I began improvising more when I didn't have the time to practice or the mental energy to learn pieces. As far as I can tell, most improvising is some manner of playing through chord progressions, but getting advanced stylistically and rhythmically, so I don't just sound like an emo teenager, is harder. Sounds like you are on the right track with your teacher.
As an extra note, I was stealthily put on a program to play at a family wedding while people gathered in the church -- it wasn't clear if they wanted me to play for sure, but when I showed up my name was on the program! So I went to the front of the church and improvised and it was fine. If I can do it, most others surely can! Have fun. -
Love to improvise! It's great you have a teacher that is both classical and jazz as they will be able to help you transition from note reading to the freedom of improvising. It's a lovely feeling to be comfortable harmonizing a melody over a chord progression. Jeremy Siskind has some nice videos on Tonebase on improvising. Have you checked them out?
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Hi Ken. I have learnt a lot of jazz theories. Totally would love to sit down and play any chord progressions. There are much to learn and not as easy as I thought. Still prodding on and loving the jazzy tones. Glad you asked.
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Great to hear that I am not alone in my journey to learn how to improvise well. My teacher tells me to “play fewer notes, leave space, do not have a fixed left-hand rhythm - rather have the left hand support what the right hand is doing.” Sounds easy enough right :|
I will record a couple of my favourite chord progressions and post them.
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Hi Ken
I’ve been dabbling in jazz and improv for some years and had teachers over the years , it was a struggle at the beginning, particularly as with most classically trained pianists , I had never learned to play by ear which I think is essential in order to progress in this area
but I think I’ve made some progress
below is my arrangement /improv of fats Waller’s jitterbug waltz, I originally posted for the community concert last January
Jitterbug waltz
https://youtu.be/gJLgT-rEotw?si=fzV34FWhCkExulrJk
It would be great to continue this stream where people could post their work in this area