| The abiltity to improvise is within the reach of | | | | of your improvisational endeavors. |
| everyone who wants to develop this skill. You can | | | | You will play a C-major chord in your left hand. It can |
| start to improvise in a way that will give you and | | | | consist of three keys pressed down as you probably |
| others the benefits from this art. Let's see what | | | | already know: |
| good improvisational skills involve! | | | | C-major: C3 E3 G3 |
| What is improvisation? | | | | The numbers indicate that you play the notes in the |
| Many people have the notion that improvisation is the | | | | third octave, that is, the octave to the left of middle |
| ability to create something out of nothing. Well, you | | | | C. Now I will give you a sparse amount of notes to |
| can improvise in a kitchen too. Creating a fantastic | | | | use to create a "dinner" worth eating, that is, worth |
| dinner out of the things you can find around. | | | | listening to. |
| However, note that there has to be some sort of | | | | Notes to use: C4 D4 E4 |
| material to use, like a potato or a carrot hanging | | | | Now it's time to improvise, or rather, compose! |
| around. I haven't heard of a chief creating a dinner | | | | Press down the C-major chord with your left hand |
| out of nothing yet. | | | | and try to come up with nice melodies just using the |
| Let's apply this principle in your piano playing! Here are | | | | three melody notes in your right hand. What can you |
| the two ingredients that will create and make your | | | | do to create variation with just these three notes? |
| improvisations into something worth listening too, in | | | | 1. Vary the order of the notes. |
| other words, music: | | | | 2. Vary the length of the notes. |
| 1. Your ability to find the notes you want to play on | | | | 3. Vary how hard you press down the notes. |
| your piano. | | | | 4. Use other means that you will find out as you play. |
| 2. Phrases, scales and fragments of melodies that | | | | You can develop this exercise by moving the chord |
| you have memorized in your mind or in your fingers | | | | and melody notes up one step resulting in a new |
| that can be reused and changed to create new | | | | chord and new notes to improvise upon: |
| music. | | | | D-minor: D3 F3 G3 Notes to use: D4 E4 F4 |
| 3. The ability to compose music out of the before | | | | I will give you one more position one step up: |
| mentioned assets. | | | | E-minor: E3 G3 B3 Notes to use: E4 F4 G4 |
| I would like to start with the third asset. The ability | | | | You can try playing these three chords improvising a |
| to compose music out of the material you have at | | | | while on each step with the following order of the |
| your disposal is the most important skill. You can | | | | chords: |
| actually use just a few notes in order to create | | | | C Dm Em Dm C |
| something musically worthwhile. | | | | Yes, this is a kind of Genesis for your improvisational |
| Some pianists or other instrumentalists can have the | | | | skills as this easy exercise will force you to actually |
| ability to play a lot of patterns, scales and licks at a | | | | compose music and not only rely on flashy |
| tremendous speed but this doesn't secure that they | | | | complicated scales, patterns or licks that might hide |
| can create music from this material. | | | | the lack of music in the improvisational efforts. |
| I think that it is a good thing to only use a sparse | | | | I would suggest that you work both on learning |
| amount of notes in order to develop the skill to | | | | scales, patterns and licks and on the even more |
| actually compose music as you improvise. Like some | | | | important art of composing music out of very easy |
| good blues guitarists do. Take B.B. King for example, | | | | melody fragments so that you will develop into a |
| messing around with just one note at times! | | | | better musician. |
| Here is a first example for you to use as a beginning | | | | |