Accompanying, arranging, improvizing

[danny elfboy]

I wonder how many of you classical trained suffer the drawbacks of such approach.
I'm realizing I do suffer from them.
I sing in a choir and the director of the choir is a pianist who has also a wonerful skill for all those more musically intuitive tasks like arranging melodies, transcribing songs, accompanying and created basslines and is a very good improvizer.
Not only all of this gives him a solid eclecticism and equal mastery of all styles, genres but also has, I'm pretty sure, helped his piano technique a lot.

I sometimes feel like a music playback machine limited by a sheet and by formal education based on just a minimal part of what music is all about. I'm eclectic in my tastes and music appreciation and I've realized I want to be eclectic as a musician too.

I like popular piano, electronic-keyboard music, jazz piano as much as I like classical music and I don't want to neglet all those areas, especially those more intuitive, global and analogic (right emisphere) to fossilize in those more computistic, symbolic and analytic (left emisphere)

The problem is with my playback music machine formal education I don't really know where to begin to develop and nurture those other areas of piano playing.
And it seems to confirm what I have been saying about the lack of an harmonic approach in piano students. My problems are indeed on the harmonic sphere: creating arrangements, playing by ear not just the melody but the bassline too, accompanying, harmonizing a melody or a composition, playing from a fake book, improvizing bass patterns ...

Can you help me?
Maybe share a list of books or methods (Cd, Dvds) that explain these and propose esercizes to develop these skills and understand "intuitive music" better

Thanks

[oscarr111111]

I agree with your thoughts, I think that to be a true musician you must not only reproduce other peoples music but also create your own.  Music is a very personal form of expression, and performing other peoples music is just reproduction of OTHER peoples expression.

I've always approached music from an improvisational standpoint, before I started on piano (I'm still a beginner) I'd played bass guitar for a decent time, I knew my theory, had trained my ear a bit and had cut my musical teeth on regular jam sessions for years before I even learned to read sheet music.  I don't think this can be 'taught' however, it must be discovered by the musician him/herself, the best a teacher can do is to provide the ideal conditions for the student to make this discovery.  Its within reach of everyone however, it just has to be found.  The best way to develop it then is just to get into the local scene and play with as many other musicians as possible, just jam.  Many jazz musicians learned to play their instruments just by playing to the radio or joining in at the bandstand for years and learning by trial and error before they even knew what notes they were playing.

[danny elfboy]

It's not just a matter of "creating your own music" but of really approaching musically someone else's music you play.

For example I think that arranging is a very useful skill.
Being able to arrange implies a control and understanding of music which will bring even the performance of a romantic sonata to a next level, a level in which it's not just "note-wise playing the right notes at the right time" but really approaching music globally, wholly and holistically. A level in which the musical and harmonical structure becomes the clear focus and substitute the inherently unmusical notewise approach.