How do you improvise/learn how to improvise?

[Bob]

I haven't much, if anything, with improvising.

How do you do it?  What do you think of/focus on?

How do you learn it?  Learn by doing, yes, b ut is there a standard path?

[quantum]

I don't think there is a single path to study improvisation.  People can come at it from many different angles.  Since it does not figure as a large part of the formal education of a classical pianist, there can be even a wider variety of paths. 

Nobody taught me how to improvise, it is something I had to figure out for myself.  There was never any mention of improvisation lessons from my teachers.  However, when I entered uni I discovered a dedicated group of people who were very much into improvisation.  That brought more attention to the subject for me - as up till that time I had always pondered the questions you ask now. 

I started at home, trying to create melodies and accompaniments, experimenting with chords, exploring what the ranges of the piano could do.  At first it was very discouraging, both my fingers and brain seemed to get stuck all the time.  I found myself copying a lot of the music I was familiar with.  I persisted though, and slowly improvising became less constrictive and more creative. 

What I focus on can vary quite a bit.  I can go in with a preset theme or idea, I can start completely blank and let the music guide me, focusing on an image is something I do frequently.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  One has to enjoy the process all the same. 

Don't aim for perfection.  In many cases what you had in your head will not come out sounding what you imagined - but that is ok just go with what you just created and use that to continue.  Oftentimes following the music even though it is what you did not intend, yields some pleasantly surprising results.

[ted]

I have only one point to add to quantum's excellent synopsis.

Improvisation can be done, at one end of the mental spectrum, by aiming to produce a definite static product by spontaneous means; in other words as very rapidly thought out imitation composition using mental arithmetic. On the other hand, it can be an organic process internal to the player, a process whose form is contained in dynamic instruction rather than static data. Dynamic form (I have come to believe in the last few years that such a thing exists), instead of producing one defined end result, is likely to generate large classes of musical objects with familial similarity – rather like animals or plants of a species. It seems to me that the mindsets of composer and improviser correspond roughly to architecture and biology, result and process, data and instruction.

In my own case, I was taught as a youth to do the former exclusively and now, at sixty-one, do almost nothing but the latter. In the end it does not matter which road we traverse as long as we are aware we actually do have choices and are free to select either or something in between. As to the nuts and bolts of becoming fluent in improvisation, as stated before, I have had no success at all in communicating the necessary release of inhibition to any except the relatively young. I hope this does not reflect a general truth but I am rather afraid it might.

[lostinidlewonder]

I find the difficult part of professional improvisation is that it requires you to be a complete musician. That means that you know the ins and outs of music for your instrument, you know all the tools and tricks of the trade. Of course anyone can improvise and muck around on the piano, but the improvisation, of say a concert performance, requires a great deal of musical understanding. So much so that pretty much no classical pianists improvise in concert, usually you only see that from the "Jazz/Modern" side in performance(which by no means is any easier than classical improvisation but certainly more popular these days).

I hear the stories of Liszt making women in his audience cry when he improvised in concert, improv back then surely then must have been was quite similar to actual compositions in their structure and clarity. It is hard to say what is a good improv or bad, it is a very subjective thing more so than the subjectivity of what makes good performance of a composition. However I personally feel that concert standard classical improvistaion is a lost art somewhat and only the complete musician can achieve it.

The great majority of professional classical pianists cannot improvise because of the way in which they are wired to play their musica. Most classical pianists are predominatnly slaves to the words (notes in sheets) and can only improve articulating them in a professional manner. They cannot come up with musical talk themselves spontaneously in the style that they are used to speak in. If they do try it never reflects their intention or with freedom of thought. Improv is the final frontier of musical development in my opinion only because I see many great professional pianists who never learn to improvise.

Interestingly enough many composers who are also pianists like to improvize and can do so with astonishing freedom. For example David Foster, a world renouned music figure, can on the spot knit together chords and melody completely effortlessly. The ease in which he does it and the mastery of his understanding of melody allows him to produce countless songs which have been world wide hits. This, in my opinon, is a real gift, given from God or whatever you might think, something outside of ourselves, something that just can't be learnt. These people just live music they understand it so well that it just pours out of them, they don't have to think about it, the decision making is all in the subconsious and the ear controls everything they do.

This isn't to say that those that never improvize or have the inability to are lesser musicians. To be a complete musician you have to be a performer and composer. Some people just like to specialize and thats totally fine.

[keyofc]

I don't try to focus on anything musical when I'm improvising - it is a response to how I feel inside.

You have to be a composer to improvise - but you might be one - and not know it.

I think it's interesting someone said they've only had luck with kids in this.  I think it's because as adults we become inhibited through our experiences.  Formal education can help a lot - but also wreck a lot of creativity.

If I had never improvised before - I would try playing a piece that I really like - and then begin playing it a little different - (just a little)  Are you enjoying it?  Change it a little more - I would say make every change small - so your focus is on enjoying the music - and the sound.
Why don't you try it Bob?   Substitute a few chords - take out the melody but keep returning to the chord on a chord change and little by little you may find you can do it.

Don't keep your eyes on the sheet music - keep your eyes on your hands - close your eyes eventually.
Hope this helps.
work around the chord progressions -

[quantum]

If I had never improvised before - I would try playing a piece that I really like - and then begin playing it a little different - (just a little)  Are you enjoying it?  Change it a little more - I would say make every change small - so your focus is on enjoying the music - and the sound.
Why don't you try it Bob?   Substitute a few chords - take out the melody but keep returning to the chord on a chord change and little by little you may find you can do it.

On a related note I like taking a melody I like and re-harmonizing it.

Could be something simple like a jazz standard or Broadway tune.  Often times I experiment with adding a lot of dissonant wierd sounding chords to an otherwise tonal melody. 

[Bob]

I was thinking I might try playing a few chords with chord/melody notes moving, like... three notes moving around with a chord, then switch to a different chord.  That sounds doable. 

I suppose I'm thinking classical homophonic improvisation too.

[omar_roy]

The best way to learn to improvise is to just do it!  But it's not as easy as it sounds obviously.

Try starting with a preset melody, something mundanely simple and doing a figured bass type accompaniment.  First do the block chords, then break them or only use certain parts of the chord.  Maybe structure them in alberti bass, or arpeggiate them.  Once you become fairly proficient with that.  The easiest way to improvise, I've found, is to know here you are in a scale, and know here you want/need to go.  Having a pretty solid background in theory helps with this.  Just keep playing around.  Improvise around ideas, steal things from composers and improvise around those, make a random musical subject and improvise variations on it.  Just keep doing it and eventually it'll get easier and easier, and soon music will fly out of your hands. 

[go12_3]

Confession of a pianist/violinist/guitarist/singer/composer:   

I don't do improvisations !  I had a member that told me how to improvise, and I really did try, but all I did was a sonatina type of passages.        I did a couple of lyrics (acappella)that I sang without knowing what to expect,  the melody and words just came  from my mind(I really don't know if that is considered improvisation).   

I admired those who can improvise on the piano and some of the improvs are so unique and cool to listen to.       Bravo!   Bravo!   

best wishes,

go12_3

[opus10no2]

To those who think they can't improvise -

How did you string your first original sentence together? 

Many musicians here only do the musical equivelant of reading words, and some can hear and repeat, but if we can create our own original sentences, expressing ourselves in new unique combinations and sequences of words, why can't we with music?

Improvisors and composers can't musically create anything they haven't already heard. They simply use the micro-ideas of music they've heard before and create new sequences of them according to their own taste.

A funny thought - Beethoven may have created many great ideas that we might love, but he rejected. His own taste governed what he chose to publish, but one wonders what the improvised ideas he rejected were like...

[neardn]

study theory and different styles

classical form is basically patterns

and then

sit down and improvise

in Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann, the character Adrian learns how to modulate by simply sitting down and playing various diminished chords, and then finding the resolution

the more you improvise the easier it will be to recognize what you think sounds good and what doesn't

[goldentone]

Improvisors and composers can't musically create anything they haven't already heard. They simply use the micro-ideas of music they've heard before and create new sequences of them according to their own taste.

I don't believe that at all.  I think most here would reject that notion.

[nanabush]

Theory helps no doubt!  After I started taking basic harmony, learning about modulations and basic chord progressions, I started improvising like crazy.  

When I feel like improvising (I usually do this to warm up), I'll start with some very basic chords (Example Eb- to Bb- to Gb+ to Cb+, etc), then I start arpeggiating them, then add some booming bass notes for pedal point, and just add some random scales/arpeggios in the right hand.  I'll go to nearby keys, and repeat this, and then come back and usually add some weird stuff to throw it off.  I like recording my improvs, because sometimes I zone out and go on for 10 minutes or so... it's interesting to see what I come up with after I've established a basic musical idea and my mind really drifts away.  Usually I can do a pretty good harmonic analysis of the stuff I play (I usually stick to expanding basic musical ideas such as chords and scales, not so much the 12 tone stuff that freaks me out ).

I've started looking at some jazz music, because I've been strictly taught classical theory.  It's amazing what a few complex chords can do do an improvisation.

I also think chords built on 4ths and 5ths are amazing for an atmospheric sound.  I'll play a C-G-C in the left hand and an Eb-Bb-Eb chord in right hand, hold the pedal, and add some pentatonic stuff up top.  It gives a nearly surreal sound that really gets me caught up in the improvisation.

[opus10no2]

I don't believe that at all.  I think most here would reject that notion.

It's a fact.

In melody - a motif is a word, a tune is a sentence, and a song is a paragraph.

Every word in a great work of literature had been used before. Every fragment of melody in a Beethoven symphony had been used before, just never in such an extraordinary sequence.

When we arrive at the more experimental harmonies of Scriabin etc., he didn't miraculously imagine them, he experimented at the piano, liked what he heard, and introduced the unconventional patterns in his works.

This is in no way intended to disrespect musical creativity, only demystify it.

Only a genius can write works of consistent greatness, be it in music or literature... but I insist that just as anyone can improvise speech, anyone of modest musicality can improvise music.

[omar_roy]

I wouldn't even say that it has to do with musicality.  Think of music as a language.  It's easier for someone to converse and improvise in their native tongue, is it not? Therefore a certain degree of fluency in musical language (essentially, theory) is helpful in improvise.

[opus10no2]

Musical language isn't theory...since music technically means nothing, study of theory is an attempt to gain intellectual grasp of something sensual. It has it's importance, and can be interesting, but music comes from and touches the inner ear, not a thinking part of the brain.

[go12_3]

music comes from and touches the inner ear, not a thinking part of the brain.

I truly agree with this.  If I think too much about music then the creativity gets lost somehow in
the process of making music.  As in art, someone noticed I was very good at it, but cautioned me
not to take lessons at all(I was contemplating to be an Art Major)because that would hinder my
creativity and my unique style in my art work.   I took violin lessons from a teacher last year for a few weeks, but she had me work on technique and every single note had to be perfectly played and so forth.  That was too much thinking for me to truly enjoy making music with my violin.  I don't improvise on the piano, I think some have that innate ability to produce such wonderful harmonies and passages.  The ear is so important to acquire the pitch on a violin or voice, and to make sense of where the notes are going and doing, and what the musician wants to bring forth a message from his inner soul. 

best wishes,

go12_3

[omar_roy]

Musical language isn't theory...since music technically means nothing, study of theory is an attempt to gain intellectual grasp of something sensual. It has it's importance, and can be interesting, but music comes from and touches the inner ear, not a thinking part of the brain.

Normally I refrain from telling people that they are wrong, but this is an instance in which I believe it is necessary, and I urge you to reconsider that statement.

Music Theory, the study of chord structure, modulation, etc etc, is the language of music.  It is the framework that music is written by.  Anybody can write music if they know the rules and how chords progress and relate to one another, etc.  The easiest example is when you construct a simple melody (without even needing to hear it) and then fill in the chords in 4 part harmony. If music didn't touch the thinking part of the brain, then it would have no significance to us at all.  That "thinking" part of the brain is what allows us to feel the emotions and see the images that music is trying to bring to us.  That "thinking" part is what allows us to interpret musical language, and musical language is music theory.

I'm not quite sure how to explain this, but the way music is shaped has everything to do with the chords we are progressing through as we play.  So to say that Music Theory is an attempt to intellectually grasp something raw, then I disagree.  Music Theory is the means through which that raw concept is displayed.  If we didn't have chord structures and scale degrees, and specific sounds and relations, we wouldn't have music.

And I could go further into detail with strong/weak beats of measures and how they are influenced by things like poetry and such, but that would be delving too far into the proverbial Glass Bead Game and into specific eras of music.

[quantum]

Music Theory is the means through which that raw concept is displayed.  If we didn't have chord structures and scale degrees, and specific sounds and relations, we wouldn't have music.

Music Theory is the means by which we have attempted to explain how music works.  Music Theory was created as a way to describe the tendency of how music works, and how composers reused certain tools to achieve a certain sound.  

Eg: Doubling the leading note is not a mortal sin.  It is just that western music does not prefer the sound it creates.  

If we limit our musical creativity to a certain set of theoretical ideas, all we will get is music that sounds like a particular genre that subscribes to such ideas.  

Chord structures, scale degrees, etc. are just labels we have created in order to communicate the mechanics of music.  Music can very well exist without such labels.  Just step outside western art music into cultures where the notion of a "scale" and 12 divisions to an octave would be very clumsy to use in such music because of microtonal activity.  

[omar_roy]

That's what I'm trying to say though.  These parts of music that we have labeled are the building blocks of music (Western).  Regardless of the labels, it would exist.  I guess what I meant by Music theory being the language is the chords themselves, regardless of the label.  I'm sorry I didn't clarify.

[opus10no2]

Music and music theory aren't the same.

We use theory to intellectually label a sensuous experience.

It's like using words to describe an orgasm... can be interesting but misses the point

[ted]

There is also the point that musical theories appear only able to describe well that whose components are discrete. Chords are discrete combinations. Music which is clockwork and synchronous is easy to analyse rhythmically. Unless we deliberately set out to improvise in these simple ways, our results will almost always be asynchronous, not easily notatable, and not at all divisible into discrete blocks of this or that harmony, this or that time division. That is not to say that such improvisation will be formless, very much on the contrary, only that there will most likely be as many theoretical descriptions as there are improvisations. Neither would I assert that general constructive theories of improvisation cannot exist. Probably good improvisers would rather just play than bother trying to work them out. However, these theories would surely be constructive rather than descriptive, much more abstract and very removed from the "let's spot the chord sequence" approach which seems to dominate both classical and jazz.

[Bob]

All right.  Finally.  I got my very, very basic improvisation in.

[dan101]

Hi Bob,

Improvising is greatly helped by a couple of factors:

1) A good ear... either perfect or relative pitch.

2) Knowledge of scales, harmony and form.

I would also suggest finding a teacher who specializes in improvising. It's a long and fun educational quest.

Good luck.
 

[Bob]

I was thinking about type of improv...

My list:
"classical" improve, homophonic.  This is what I was thinking of.
contrapuntal, I suppose
or atonal
jazz, in all its forms.  Something I'm interested in.  Whenever I get to it..

I'm sure there are... but are there any other types?  I've heard of, but don't know anyone, who improvises contrapuntally.   

Ah yes...
"Improvising" by altering an existing piece.  Although that's getting into a different area...
It depends what pieces you have in mind when you improvie.  By harmony, with a melody, with a bassline, etc.

[dan101]

Jazz improv and classical improv both have styles that use both the harmony and/or the melody for inspiration.

No matter which style of improvising you choose as your niche, you should really know as much info as possible with respect to forms, harmonies and rhythmic style within the era of your choosing.

It's a wonderful journey. Good luck.

[Bob]

Hey, hey.  Managed to do some more simple improv today.  A few minutes only, but it was better than what I did the other day. 

Although I was just playing whatever and I wasn't aware of what I was playing.  I was wondering if it could/should be more in the mind -- having things planned out, thinking of chord -- or in the ear, hearing something in the mind and then figuring it out and playing that.  Either I suppose.

[keyofc]

Good for you Bob!

I wouldn't worry about thinking that much when I'm doing it - but I would record myself
so I can repeat what I like later.

[goldentone]

I haven't much, if anything, with improvising.

How do you do it?  What do you think of/focus on?

How do you learn it?  Learn by doing, yes, b ut is there a standard path?

To answer your question, Bob:

When we improvise, there are two things happening:

1.  We hear the music in us.
2.  We play what we hear.

We can at least separate those steps logically.  In order for our creativity to be freed up, we need to be able to recognize intervals and chords visually and aurally.  We're then in position to create whatever strikes the muse.  As far as the creativity and making real music, just keep playing.   

[goldentone]

I'm sure there are... but are there any other types?  I've heard of, but don't know anyone, who improvises contrapuntally.    

Listen to this Bachian-tinged improv from K back in December of 2006.  She ventures a bit into the world of the contrapuntal.  Wonderful.

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