How to Improvise on Chopin Op. 10 No 1

[aclaussen]

An exercise for classical pianists with a basic understanding of music theory and harmony to improvise on Chopin's first etude. The video is created by Harmony and Color, a project that hopes to revive the tradition of improvisation in classical music.

[dfrankjazz]

I'm sorry, this is a poor idea poorly presented (cough). Improvisation includes both musical elements and improv concepts. Just cerebrally truckin' around on the some arpeggios related to the original piece does not reflect the great tradition of improvisation as represented by the great early classical pianists or the great tradition of jazz improvisers who have carried that tradition forward. You can play anything you want if it's in a C scale, then throw in a chromatic here and there, and by the way, I don't know all the modes? Give me a break! You need to learn your sh*t before you put something out on a high end public forum man!

Dave Frank
Director, Dave Frank School of Jazz
NYC

[visitor]

I'm sorry, this is a poor idea poorly presented (cough). Improvisation includes both musical elements and improv concepts. Just cerebrally truckin' around on the some arpeggios related to the original piece does not reflect the great tradition of improvisation as represented by the great early classical pianists or the great tradition of jazz improvisers who have carried that tradition forward. You can play anything you want if it's in a C scale, then throw in a chromatic here and there, and by the way, I don't know all the modes? Give me a break! You need to learn your sh*t before you put something out on a high end public forum man!

Dave Frank
Director, Dave Frank School of Jazz
NYC

*applause entered the chat

[dfrankjazz]

hahaha)

[aclaussen]

Dave-

I enjoy the negative criticism, thanks for adding to the conversation (seriously).

Please keep in mind the target audience is classical musicians who want to take an intital stab at learning improvisation-which is essentially my background. A few years ago I couldn’t play any note that wasn’t written on the page without freaking out. That’s where I believe a lot of classical musicians are at. This exercise is to get people who were like me from step 0 to step 1.

Im in the camp “if it sounds good, do it.” You very accurately broke down my playing into “play anything you want on C scale and throw in some chromatic”. But if you tell that to a beginner they can immediately work with it. By “knowing your stuff” Are you saying I need to have more music theoretical knowledge? Do I really need to have this intricate knowledge of minor substitutions, modal interchange, all the different variations of blues progressions, how every jazz legend approached xyz tune to create something beautiful (now if you could make the argument that what I played wasn’t beautiful, and I admit I have a lot of room for improvement, but the YouTube statistics on that video suggest that my playing could at least hold peoples interest) or something that a casual listener could appreciate? Does a beginner improviser really need to be bogged down with such technical knowledge to stifle that initial drive to be creative? Do you really think Chopin, Liszt, and Rachmaninov would sh*t on that video? What do you think their critique would have been? Sure it’s a bunch of arpeggios but this is only an exercise and after all the exercise is based on Chopins arrpggio etude after all. A more full composition/improvisation would be more varied.

Given your experience I am interested in your thoughts on what I could do to improve my playing and further the goal of pushing classical players to improvise.

[aclaussen]

Wanted to add also that from my personal experience classical players have a different tune going on in their head than jazz players. They march to the tune of a different drum so to speak. They feel rhythm differently. So to teach them improvisation from the standpoint of learn rhythm changes or autumn leaves and listen to the records, jazz musicians have been immersing themselves for years in that style however a classical player is intimately familiar with playing with rubato, how a waltz should feel, how to play with a Liszt like virtuosity. They can jump right in with what they are familiar with. If the goal is just to teach people how to be musically creative and original, It’s like trying to teach creative writing in French to people who only speak English. They’d be much better of learning in their native tongue.

Your comment comes of a tad elitist, a problem I have seen a lot in both the classical and jazz worlds. I think I’m qualitied as anyone to post on this forum. I have performed with major symphonies in my state as a soloist, won numerous prizes/scholarships for piano, etc.  The unfotunate truth is 99% of people are never going to appreciate how a good jazz player quoted a bunch of different historical solos, but they will appreciate raw emotion and musicality. You might not agree that my playing exhibited raw emotion and musicality but whatever. I believe that someone with a classical background and raw musical instinct can take that video and run with it very quickly. Maybe if more people approached the music this way, there’d be a larger audience to appreciate all the subtleties and finesse that a truly experienced and educated musician can bring. If the tradition is to carry forward, it needs to be accessible. If my approach speaks to even 2% of the people who watch it, still that’s a much bigger pool of people who can improvise/compose in the classical and somewhat jazz styles.

[aclaussen]

One more point- classical music took in my opinion horrific  turn with the serialism and Cage and all the academic approach to composition. I think the majority of people on this forum can agree that this music is not accessible to everyday listeners.  In my opinion with some exceptions the best composers in the classical style stopped coming in the 1920s and after Schoenberg and all that is when classical music took a dive in popularity. That’s just one reason for the demise.

Jazz is going through a similar thing. It used to be a danceable form of music. It’s taken a similar turn with a very academically minded group of musicians and jazz players who are trying to just impress each other.

My hope with this is that someone with an understanding of Chopin or Debussy can start composing and improvising in an accessible, personal style, but it would certainly be informed (consciously or unconsciously) by the classical music that came before. Admittedly I have more to learn about jazz but I think it’s apparent from my responses that I have some knowledge about the genre.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

You are sort of preaching to the converted in my case, seeing as I've improvised for as long as I can remember, and whilst I have a (stereo-?)typical style, I can do others.

What I would say is that I think you've done this the wrong way round, in that improvising on Chopin 10/1 is almost inevitably going to result in something that sounds like a consequence of the player being unable to play the original. If you started from, for the sake of an example, the 28/7 prelude, then you are giving far more scope for even a relatively unskilled player to add to the original, rather than subtracting from it.

[aclaussen]

You are sort of preaching to the converted in my case, seeing as I've improvised for as long as I can remember, and whilst I have a (stereo-?)typical style, I can do others.

What I would say is that I think you've done this the wrong way round, in that improvising on Chopin 10/1 is almost inevitably going to result in something that sounds like a consequence of the player being unable to play the original. If you started from, for the sake of an example, the 28/7 prelude, then you are giving far more scope for even a relatively unskilled player to add to the original, rather than subtracting from it.

Thanks for the comment. I think there is some underlying ways of thinking about how improvisation is done in your comment: jazz players play the 32-measure something  head, which is basically the original tune, then the players take turns improvising on that head, then finally at the end returning to the head as written. The idea is to play inside then chord changes of that head (while sometimes you might go outside), but overall even as you listened to the improvised solos it should still resemble the head and you can keep track of where you are so to speak.

Certainly if this is the approach (which is how jazz players go about it) then 28/7 is certainly a better pick. However I was going at it more in maybe the way Chopin was looking at Bach prelude and fugue number 1 from book 1 (which he did, and was a piece that inspired the op 10 no 1 etude) and asking himself, how can I make something that’s like this, maybe loosely based on the structure (but free to take whatever turns you want), but distinctive in my own way. I wouldn’t say Chopin “added” or “subtracted” to Bach in his op 10 no 1, but Bach is there somewhere, but not in the way a jazz musician would think about it as there are no direct quotations and the “changes” are different.

But there is nothing wrong with the former approach and I have already recorded a video (not published) that is more in that style, but on the e major etude from Chopin.

[lostinidlewonder]

I appreciate that beginners have to start somewhere and anything is better than nothing of course though I feel there are better starting points over others. Even for beginners learning some chord progressions that they can create from the circle of 5ths and the relative minors attached to them will offer a more creative experience that they will feel control with and it may inspire in them some simple melodic lines over the top of these and then more elaborate ones as time goes by. They can start at start with a small part of the circle, say  Majors: F-C-G and then the relative minors of those  Dm-Am-Em and then create all sorts of progressions with just these chords, inversion combinations to create minimal movement and directional movement of progressions or mixtures of both so not always relying on the root chords. The larger your leaps around the complete circle the stranger you usually will sound (but of course not always), this is a good way to intoduce some basis to improvisation for beginners. Improv is best started out very simply.

[keypeg]

The bit "with an F# in it, even though it's in C major" - I'd say you've got a D7 chord there.

[aclaussen]

The bit "with an F# in it, even though it's in C major" - I'd say you've got a D7 chord there.

True, it wouldn’t have hurt to mention that in the video.

From an improvisers standpoint though you got to know which scales will work. If it’s jist D7 the player is limited to 4 notes. Think the point I was trying to make is any note from C Lydian would worked (or g major scale whatever).

[keypeg]

If it’s jist D7 the player is limited to 4 notes. Think the point I was trying to make is any note from C Lydian would worked (or g major scale whatever).

If you are improvising over a D7 chord you have more than those 4 notes.  A scale itself can be considered a chord with "in between notes".

Dave has said more and better.  He is the expert in this area.

I couldn't get any shape out of what I heard, tbh.

[aclaussen]

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[dfrankjazz]

if you are going to put out a video on brain surgery, I think it's best you really know something about the subject. You can say "just open up the guy's head, the cerebellum is in the front". The viewer will know something about the brain more than they did perhaps...  Improvisation is a serious science and art. Perhaps having given my entire life to this subject it's hard for me to be frivolous about the subject. so I wish you the best with it and hope it loosens some classical cats up)                     

[cuberdrift]

An exercise for classical pianists with a basic understanding of music theory and harmony to improvise on Chopin's first etude. The video is created by Harmony and Color, a project that hopes to revive the tradition of improvisation in classical music.

Greetings, aclaussen,

May I know if you're the one in the video? Or are directly involved with the project? Or just sharing it?

Just curious.

Also, dfrank, I respectfully think you're being kinda harsh. This isn't a "high end public forum", I mean sure it probably has a lot of topnotch concert pianists but from what I know a lot of beginners as well.

[ted]

I like to hear any ideas from anybody about improvisation of any type, so I shall leave the arguments about relative merit to others. However, I did find it very difficult to see and hear what was going on, with the instrument in the outdoors and the camera facing the player. It could be because I'm getting on in years, but that is the main problem I have with it.