Improvising

[pianistavt]

Someone mentioned they improvise in a post and someone else followed up asking how to go about.  So I thought I would create a dedicated post on the topic.
Have you ever tried improvising?
Do you improvise regularly?
What's your approach?

There's a channel here for posted improvisations:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?board=31.0

[skari123]

Someone mentioned they improvise in a post and someone else followed up asking how to go about.  So I thought I would create a post on the topic.
Have you ever tried improvising?
Do you improvise regularly?
What's your approach?

There's a channel here for posted improvisations:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?board=31.0

I have tried improvising and sometimes do, although not maybe regularly but it is definitely an activity I want to improve on. I first got acquainted with it through jazz so my basis in improvisation is thanks to jazz, otherwise I would probably not be able to improvise today. Jazz is more about melodic improvisation so you are not making everything from scratch like in classical, although that's not always the case. I have transcribed melodies mainly to improve my skills as it is very fundamental. In other ways it is hard for me to describe what I do when improvising because it comes to me fairly naturally. Some people are better at this than other, you can check out cyprian katsaris improvising, his improvisations sound like they were composed beforehand.   

[pianistavt]

I'd say I start with a melody as well, or in my case, a melodic or thematic fragment, usually just 3-5 notes.  Before that I suppose there is a mood I'm going to express.  Unfortunately the moods that come up have been consistently repetitive over the past few years.  I also look for interesting harmonic sequences, to contrast with the theme.  My baseline stylistic instinct is Scriabin-like, in melody and harmony.  It's not hard to slide into mellow jazz styles from there.  That's my standard way of improvising.  I've also done a more thought out way, which is more akin to composing I suppose, where I work with a couple ideas for 15-20 minutes before I actually record something.

[ted]

Improvisation is a highly individual process and the results have different effects on different listeners, just like any form of music. I suppose in the broadest sense we can say it is spontaneous creation of music at the instrument. I can say what it means to me but other players might have contrary views and they certainly wouldn't be wrong.

For me it is the mapping of my psyche, in a way meaningful to me, onto abstract piano sound. As such, at seventy-seven and for a number of reasons, improvisation has now become just about everything to me musically with around eight hundred hours of it recorded since my retirement from paid work. I do not improvise to imitate composed music of the past, although I was to some extent trained in that by my teacher in my youth. I think that Jarrett and others have now, thanks in part to vast improvements in recording technology, amply proved that a recorded improvisation can stand as a finished artistic end product alongside composed music.

 The mental and physical processes involved, however, seem to me fundamentally different. For one thing there is obviously a much greater dependency on physical technique in improvisation than in composition and the modes of applying technique strike me as quite disparate. In playing repertoire we seek special solutions to special problems; in improvising we seek general solutions to general problems. There simply isn't time to find optimal techniques to execute an improvised idea on the fly.

The function of form, structure and pattern is also different when improvising. There are those improvisers who play according to established, a priori patterns, bar of this, bar of that, series of calculated chords, fragments popped in from a huge store of remembered playing forms. If they enjoy it then that's all that matters I suppose and good luck to them, but when I have tried it the results seem to lack life and surprise; I like to be surprised by what I play. Knowing everything that is coming would be far less fun than working in the garden.

Teaching or learning improvisation ? I used to think it could be taught but now I do not. At least I don't think the imperative to create can be taught because it lies in a part of the brain unconnected to the measurable musical skills which can be taught. Of course I could just be a lousy teacher, one or two successes in dozens of attempts would suggest that.   

[ted]

Someone mentioned they improvise in a post and someone else followed up asking how to go about.  So I thought I would create a dedicated post on the topic.
Have you ever tried improvising?
Do you improvise regularly?
What's your approach?

I omitted to answer these questions. Obviously my answer to the first is yes. It would be a rare day when I do not improvise, and I normally make two or three recorded sessions of improvisations a week, each usually about an hour. The third question I have partially answered in the previous post but I doubt I have had an easily definable approach for a very long time. I know it sounds fatuous but I just start playing and let my mind and ideas run free. It is easier to mention things I do not do. I do not try to be clever; I do not try to impress listeners, real or imagined; I do not use the improvisation to expand my purely physical technique, I save that for my silent Virgil Practice Clavier; I do not strive to imitate music created by other people; I do not apply a priori patterns and structures but rather allow forms and internal references to develop organically. Rules are for fools.

That will have to do for now as it's getting late here. Fifty years ago I thought I knew all about it, twenty years ago I began to have doubts, and now I am pretty sure I know next to nothing about what goes on when I improvise.

[jaquet]

I will write a more in depth post later about my approach to improvising because i want thoughts on it, because when i become a teacher i will make my students improvise.  ( might take a while before its written) 
I improvise every day, I have a certain musical intuition, which i didnt have when i started improvising, sometimes i think actively about next phrases, sometimes it just comes to me and i can be thinking about something else. In fact i have done this improvising whilst thinking about something else- to applause!
Improvising i see as a tool to improve facility of playing and to build "technique" Why study arpergios all day when u can improvise etudes on it.(alot more interesting than Hanon and also builds your musical intuition). Ive also come to a more recent idea that improvsations should generally be structured, so my approach is generally a very short and simple main theme, so i can remember it for later ( i struggle with memory, because i may remember the music but not the notes- Unfortunatley im not blessed with perfect pitch because im a late starter) Followed by some decorations of just adding onto the theme, different idea then back to a then coda. Its simple and keeps it structured to it sounds like a actual piece of music and not a incoherent mess of ideas jumbled up together to be a cheap representation of music.
The amount i improvise varies, i dont keep track but i would say one uninterrepted piece would be 20-30 mins long. I often use movements aswell. But i can only really improvise in a romantic/late romantic and impressionstic or modern style. Im trying to branch into the classical and baroque improvisation . But to improvise a fugue seems to demand complete mastery of the mind and the fingers.

[danpiano37]

Good questions! Yep I improvise regularly in a few different styles.
Have just posted an old improv on the thread you mentioned, under "Improv on a jazz groove" From a live gig I did a while back.

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=71562.msg734775#msg734775

These days it's about breaking my current habits so I'm not improvising in the same ways. But for someone starting out I always recommend to limit yourself. This may sound counter intuitive for improvising but I reckon it's the best start point (otherwise it's hard to know where to start!). So I'd pick a scale, blues scale is great to start as it sounds good pretty much whatever you do.
So for example you could have the left hand playing bassline in minums (C, Bb, Ab, G) and the RH improving on the C blues scale ( C Eb F G Bb C). Then I tell my students the first goal is just survival: i.e. just keep the left hand steady and in time while doing something that sounds ok in the RH. Once that's comfortable you can advance from there.
In the clip I'm mainly improving around the e minor blues and pentatonic scales , but move away from it a bit.

Don't know if that's what you're after or a help - but feel free to ask if you have any questions