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.

Benjamin's Double Collaboration

There were so many reasons to celebrate musical accomplishments during our end-of-year playing party this past June (see our June 17th post: "Student Showcase Success").  All of our participating students soloed with professional musicians and some of them composed musical ideas too.

Benjamin (pictured above) happened to be one of those young composers. In fact, he wrote most of the music for our piece: "BC's Swing Thing" (the first collaboration).  If you haven't already, take a listen now by clicking the audio button above!

The second collaboration came about when Benjamin had the opportunity to share our piece with the showcase musicians and then later again in our project studio with tenor saxophonist Rowan Wolf.

Benjamin and Rowan

Benjamin's curiosity has a way of being contagious. During our work together on this composition, he expressed an interest in learning more about music arranging so that he could apply his knowledge to future projects. Well, that happened to make me curious! As a way of demonstrating how another chordal instrument could add more depth to the piece while helping to keep the momentum of the melodic ideas moving forward, I wrote and recorded an additional vibraphone part. Here's a sample of the modified version: 

I happen to know that Benjamin already has some new ideas cooking. Be sure to stop back to sample more of our creative music-making!