Top 7 Don’ts for Successful Improvisation
April 7, 2007
1. Don’t try and make something happen. Trying blocks the creative flow and will result in blocks.
2. Don’t expect to create something good. Expectations will always come with judgements and, consequently, you’ll end up feeling let down.
3. Don’t worry about what is “coming out.” Improvisation is about play and freedom to explore. Abandon unrealistic expectations and experience the joy of improvisation.
How to Create an Original Melody
April 6, 2007
Here’s a method I use that works. First, sit down at your piano or keyboard and just improvise. I suggest improvising first because music that is created in this way is at its freshest. It’s not adulterated or thought up. It is pure inspiration. Now, there will come times during improvisation where you may say to yourself, “this is nice and I’d like to develop it.” You see, now you have an original melody to develop.The trick is you don’t need a lot of material to begin with. JUST TWO BARS IS ENOUGH to start you on your way. I usually work within 8-bar phrases so I know that the melody will usually end or repeat itself after 8-bars. I say usually because sometimes, the melody does not want to fit nice and neat into a predefined 8-bar phrase. But more times than not, the 8-bar phrase will serve you well
How to Play What you Feel
April 5, 2007
Many students think that being able to play what you feel is difficult. They believe you must have years and years of training in improvisation and theory.The truth of the matter is that playing what you feel is easy when you understand what feeling is. Feeling is not emotion, yet it contains emotion. For example, If I’m in an ecstatic state of happiness and rush over to the piano and play, what I am doing is tapping off of the emotion.
To play what you feel does not require high or low emotional states. On the contrary, feeling is always with us and to just sit down and play is all that is required. Our feeling is what comes out of us in the moment. It lies in wait but is always there. Think of freewriting as an analogy. To put pen to paper and just write what comes to mind, the writer is expressing feeling. Emotions may come up during this process, but they gradually return to the pool of feelings from which they came.
Everything I Play Sounds the Same
April 4, 2007
Many students want to create music that has a certain emotional quality. For example, I once had a student ask me to show her how to play something that sounded happy.Of course, this student missed the entire point of my teaching - to play where you are emotionally and to not try and come up with something. I tried to explain to her that if she were feeling happy, then the natural outcome of the music would be flavored with this emotion.
A Quick and Easy Composition Method
April 3, 2007
Here’s the method I use every time I want to capture an idea. I draw out 8-bars (or measures) first. Why 8 bars? Because it is an ideal framework to work in. Eight bars of music are enough to generate a complete musical sentence and can usually be repeated once or twice. Next, I improvise and see what comes up. THEN I will write down the chords I am playing and the first 2-bars of melody.Writing down the first 2-bars of melody helps me remember the entire theme for the 8-bar phrase. I usually stay within one key to make it easy. This means I’ll have 6 chords to work with. In C Major, the chords would be, C Maj. - D min. - E min. - F Maj. - G Maj. and A min. This is more than enough material to work with. In fact, I rarely use more than 3 or 4 chords for the first 8-bars.
The Joy of Spontaneous Expression
April 2, 2007
Do you remember finger-painting as a child? How fun it was. How exciting to be able to dip your fingers into a color that called out to you and put it on paper. The excitement of it all came from the feeling that you were an explorer, looking into uncharted territories of your own creative source.Now music can be that way too! All that is necessary is to understand that you don’t need any special talent or ability to create music with. Two chords are enough to begin experiencing the joy of spontaneous expression. In the lesson “Oriental Sunrise” we have 2 chords to play around with. And two chords are more than enough to create with
