Help with musical form

[countrymath]

Im learning improvisation (popular and classical). I can create some melodies and some cool ideas, but i can't improvise a "complete song", with intro, verse 1, verse 2, chorus, etc...

I mean, i can't make a chorus sound like a chorus. I don't know wich chords i should use on each part of the song and etc.Any help?

[Derek]

This is a difficult question to answer! I know my own improvisations have parts that could often be described as intros, verses, etc. and endings, but I'm having trouble coming up with how to explain how I do it. Certainly for several years when I was learning improvisation I didn't do it at all. Depending on where you are in your experience, you might want to do that as well---just amass several years of experience creating as many ideas in as many different ways as you can. Record yourself early and often. I have some recordings from when I had just barely left the gate.

I think one exercise that I used to do, and still do, to try to get a feel for organizing an improvisation is to play really short improvisations. I'll pause, and then try some crazy new idea that moves in a way I'm not used to...and then try to take that idea as far as I can. Over the years, this exercise gradually turned into improvising short pieces.

One thing I definitely don't do personally is think in terms of my music as discrete chunks like "intro " "verse," etc. Maybe for popular music this would be different, but for classical improvisation I think in terms of what Ted calls "cells." In other words, those cool melodies and ideas you come up with can be thought of as something more complex than a discrete chunk of notes. A melody has a contour, and a rhythm. You could borrow parts of what you're playing and repeat it later, or repeat it verbatim (not as interesting to repeat exactly). It's actually easier to think about it this way because then you do not force yourself to remember every precise detail of what you're playing, it is more vague than that.

So form becomes more than a series of chunks that can be labelled with letters. Imagine if you wrote ABACA down on a piece of paper with really wet ink, and then you smear the letters into each other. That's kind of what I'm trying to say. It's more interesting.

Bottom line is---depending on how experienced you are with improvisation---if you've started fairly recently the best thing for you to do is to do it a lot, regardless of form. Get as much experience with as many different scales, chords, rhythms, styles (if you wish) as you can, and record yourself a lot.

If you pick up a specific piece of advice from a book, then you'll just play that specific piece of advice--you won't play what you have inside. That's what I'm trying to communicate here.

Of course, if you're picking up a specific style, that's different. I also like to play boogie woogie. Boogie woogie has a lot of traditions that do not change much from piece to piece, so it would be easier to learn from specific chunks of advice from a book. However---the above advice I've written can be applied even to a relatively constrained style as boogie and give you more flexibility. For example, rather than play a rigid unchanging left hand pattern, I have the ability to make it move around more contrapuntally---largely due to developing improvisation in this more "random" way as I described above.

Good luck! *edit* one more thing. The above advice is a flawed attempt to distil many years of experience of my own combined with correspondence with an experienced improviser---a very difficult feat. Thus, in addition to picking up little bits of advice that you might find like my forum post here---find an experienced improviser to talk to. If you find someone who wants to encourage your growth, it could really change your life! It did for me!  There's also the resident Improvisations forum. Improvisers of all skill levels are welcome. Everyone there is nice and encouraging and often have useful things to say.

*edit* yet another idea. To learn improvisation---you can either "practice chops" or "practice invention/change." A lot of people are satisfied to practice chops. You just read how to play the chop/lick whatever from a book, and then you plop it down onto the keyboard when you feel like it. But, I think the best improvisers not only have chops, they have the ability to morph those chops or create new ones on the fly. That...is where real improvisational power comes from, I think.

[nystul]

In popular music the chord structure is usually predetermined.  One common structure for a jazz jam which is ridiculously simple is: play a prepared chorus (the "header") to start, then each member of the band takes turns soloing over the chord changes from the chorus while the others keep the harmony and tempo, then play the chorus again to finish.  In a rock song, solos will usually take the place of either a chorus or verse and use the chord changes from the chorus or verse.