I started when I was 17. I'm an amateur so it didn't really matter when I started. I wanted to improvise, too, when I started, but I didn't like jazz. My only choice was to learn classical pieces and try to teach myself to improvise in a classical style. Through guitar lessons I learned some basics of scales and chords, and searched the internet for anybody who could do classical improv (and found some, who ended up becoming good friends and mentors). As you can see on this website, there are lots of people who do classical improv that you could ask if you wanted some advice.So I'd say, choose the one that has the most music you enjoy; you'll be able to learn to improvise either way.
Hey Guy, This fall I´m enrolling at a Music school but i have to decide a couple of things and I would like to hear your tougths..So i have the option of Studyn Classical style or Jazz Style.. So far the only advantage I can see it that on the jazz I can learn a lot of improvisation, and there is a little thing that I'm afraid on classical course cause i have a lot of friends that play/ learn classical music and music theory for long time but they can only play what is on the notation sheet... they can´t improvise or anything like that and i really what to take this course so that i can be more creative w/ the knowledge I will Get from it ... and not the oposite...
With classical you will train your fingers. With jazz, you will get inside music theory in a way you never will with classical.
However, this does not mean improvisation cannot fit into classical. But we must be willing to either focus on a specific style or no style at all (in other words, find our own individual style), and possibly make some sacrifices on how broad our classical repertoire of pieces is. Until the overall attitude towards what being a "good pianist" is changes, I believe classical pianists will continue to "spread themselves too thin" with learning how dozens of different people moved their fingers, rather than learning how their own fingers can move in a new way.Another way to put it is classical piano playing today is more or less a museum profession, it is not a creative profession. The point is to become experts at a wide variety of musical history, by a wide variety of people. The point is not to create something new. People always think "composition" when thinking about classical music, but this is only because people are accustomed to striving with great misery and discomfort to learn difficult ways of moving their fingers that are in many cases not natural.To change the classical world back into a creative one, we must remove the artificial distinctions between styles, remove the extremely high performance standards (as the ONLY criterion for "good musician"), and remove the endlessly recycled vanity and pride amongst modern classical composers. I think it is already happening, it is only a matter of time before this becomes true.Those were just some personal thoughts, from an amateur who thinks a lot in isolation. My thinking is influenced by my profession, software engineering. My entire job is based around battling complexity and making things simpler. So, I believe the reason improvisation stopped happening in classical is simply that the task of being a "classical pianist" became too demanding and too complex after a while.
A classical pianist can generally transfer over to jazz I love to play cocktail lounge music which my classical abilities have allowed me easy access to and to improvise fill ins and rhythmic figures etc. I find the connection between Classical and cocktail lounge a very important one for the bridge towards more "serious" jazz work for me. Classical pianists have a lot of knowledge that they can apply. Theory is not really that important unless you want to compose
I do believe "play" means "NO SCORE"
Are you suggesting we cannot 'play' it unless we memorize it? not going to be good enough because we're playing it with the music? Would you prefer if the Vienna Philharmonic played everything from memory? Would the music be better?