One day I hope to be able to improvise. This clip is David Reed playing. I will never reach his standard. Perhaps it is possible to learn how to do it. Or, do you have to be born with the ability? I think Beethoven, or was it Mozart played about 6 variations on "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." J.T.

Hi

It is possible to learn how to improvise, indeed, it's part of the "stock in trade" of many classical organists, mainly in Europe.

I've attended a couple of classes on improvisation arranged by local Organists' Associations, and I sometimes will try something simple at church, but I probably don't have the imagination or the knowledge of harmony to emulate the real experts (and frankly, some of the "advanced" improvisations I've heard are not really to my taste). There are a couple of very basic examples on my You Tube channel - you'll need to scroll down to find them. Note: I'm not holding these up as examples of how to improvise - just showing that it can be done.

There's no harm in trying yourself - pick a simple theme and just see where it takes you. Don't worry too much about the rules, and if there's no-one else around for your early efforts, so much the better! What little I do tends to be based on hymn tunes or worship songs that I know well. I've tried starting with a theme that I've made up, but usually after a few minutes I've forgotten it and things degenerate into musical waffle!

Give it a try. You may enjoy it.

Every Blessing

Tony

Hi JT. I wish I could do just a little to make a piece more interesting. However my wife prefers to listen to me playing as it is written, providing I hit the correct notes. Another video worth watching of a similar theme is Rick Wakeman playing the radio 2 challenge of nursery rhymes by different composers. Had the pleasure of watching him live at the Durham Gala theatre doing this. John

This is the video that JohnT mentions ...

Take Rick Wakeman's Radio 2 Nursery Rhyme Challenge!



It is clear to me that there is no way you can 'improvise' unless you are already an accomplished musician and have had years of training. OK .. so you want to improvise. What notes would you use when improvising? You have to have an understanding of 'harmony' and know which notes will sound right with what you are playing .. ie. you cannot just play any notes. Notes that clash with the harmony can only be played as 'passing notes'. You have to be able to play scales without even thinking about it, as these are the notes that would form your improvisation.

So all in all, as a 'player' you must not be at a stage of struggling to read notes from the written music, and struggling to 'keep in time' with the beat. So I would suggest that anyone wanting to improvise starts by playing a piece accurately out of the top of their head. When they can do that they can start thinking about improvising. After all, the notes in your improvisation are not written on the sheet music for you to play. They have to come from your feeling for the music.

So I agree with JohnT's wife. I would prefer to hear a piece played as I am expecting to hear it .. ie. to hear the melody as it was written. If you muck around with the melody too much the original song almost becomes unrecognisable.

We do have Members who 'improvise' with what they play, like JonD. He won't be playing what we hear off some music score. His playing all comes from many years of experience.

Here is an improvised piece that I love to listen to. It is played by Derek Miles on a Genos keyboard.

"When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls"

Do a right-click to open this up in a NewTab
https://app.box.com/s/jo1fyzpwk7gpev4si6ssjdrplnudt1zk

Hugh

Improvisation need not be as frightening as it sounds. The advice already given is sound, but don't get too worried about talk of harmony notes, passing notes etc. Important, yes, but you can let yourself into the world of improvisation easily.

It's an important part of playing, IMHO, and it can form part of graded keyboard exams. London College of Music have the Chord Sequence Test as one of the options and it's something that most, if not all, of my students cover. In that test, you're given an 8 bar sequence of chords - 1 per bar at the early grades, with the chords becoming more complex and more frequent as you progress upwards. The time signature and tempo must be obeyed but it's up to the student to choose a suitable style. I usually get them to set up a simple 8 Beat or Swing for 4/4, a very simple Waltz for 3/4, and a gentle slow rock for 6/8. These are set into memory presets at the correct tempo for the grade, as they won't know what they'll get asked to play in advance. In the exam, they can play through the chord sequence once and then, without pausing, do so again, adding an ad-lib right hand melody.

So how do they prepare? I give them the attached sheet to work through.

If the document does not show, refresh the page.
Or download the PDF from the attachment below.



It's all explained in the sheet, so no need to repeat it here. This is intended as an introduction, and the chords at Grade 1 would be no more complex than C,F,G and G7. But once they've got the hang of working through the instructions, they can apply the principles to more chords.

One thing I do insist on when they start improvising is that they must be able to play the tune perfectly first. And they must always play one verse/chorus 'straight' before improvisation starts!

Changing the chords - reharmonisation - is a different matter altogether, and requires a deeper knowledge of harmony, a good ear, and the ability to judge when you've gone too far! And if you reharmonise and improvise at the same time, you risk losing the original tune completely. That may be what you want, of course!

Once you've got the idea of how to improvise over the basic sequences, transfer that skill over to the chord sequence in the part of the tune in which you want to improvise. Get the chords onto 'autopilot', you don't want to be thinking too much about them or looking down at them while you're trying to improvise over the top.

And remember, improvisations should sound as if they are ad-lib, even if they are actually rehearsed well in advance. Try to make it sound spontaneous. You can do this by having an outline of what you're going to do already worked out, but then making alterations as you go. If you play a wrong note, don't worry, just keep going!

There's a story of a musician sitting at a bar, looking down very sadly into his half empty glass of whisky. His friend comes up and asks, "What's wrong? You look really down." "I played some wrong notes in the ad libs tonight", came the reply. "Your ad libs are technically wrong notes!" "Ah, but tonight I played the wrong wrong notes!" It happens to us all!

Thanks, everyone for your replies to my question. I think that it is wonderful the way many members of this forum spend lots of time writing comprehensive replies . It has just occurred to me that by playing an ending on a song , which I am recording, on the fly, instead of hitting Ending #1 #2 or #3 is a form of Improvisation.
Actually, I think that I might raise this in another post, which I will call "Endings"

Hello Andy, Thanks for your post. There is no way that I can "Improvise" - well I must rephrase that. I play too many wrong notes as it is. Recently I posted "All my wrong notes in the wrong order!" The melody came out fine.
Regards, Den.