Getting Started With Improvisation; Part I - Listen and Play

I was recently reflecting on some of the different ways of getting started with music improvisation and thought about an approach that I use quite often. I’ll invite students to simply embellish notes and vary existing melodies. This way of getting started works so well, I believe, because students generally perceive it as non-threatening. I’ve found this to be especially true when I encourage students to “start off by making small changes.” That suggestion, along with a quick demonstration, seems to help students overcome initial fears like feeling lost or not knowing what to do.

This is the way it began with my student Alex when he first started improvising. If we happened to be working on a piece he was already familiar with - say, a well known classical music excerpt, folk tune or movie theme, I’d challenge him to “play all the same notes but change only the rhythm” as a way of inviting his own ideas into the music.

Last October, I noticed Alex’s improvement with his improvisations during an Open House music event. The duet piece we shared with our audience was one that he actually performed with a larger group of professional musicians just a few months before. October’s performance was different though. While he embellished and varied the same music, the quality of those embellishments and variations was noticeably better, especially during his solo.

If you’re curious to hear the piece that Alex and I performed, I’ve included an edited studio version of it here:

For those of you who already play piano, I’ve also included a free “easier” piano solo version of Spy To Spy. View the composition below and download in PDF format here.

You’ll notice that the music includes a written piano solo with chord symbol notation. If you’re not yet familiar with how to read and interpret this harmonic map, you can still have fun playing the solo. Just do what my other students do . . . embellish and vary! Try not to let thoughts about making mistakes stop you from experimenting and making your own music.

Stay tuned! In part II of this post, I’ll be demonstrating some more ways of getting started with improvisation.