Hey, hello everyone

Lately I've really got into improvising. It really was a relief for me after playing 6 years classic piano. Although I love to do that, I also really feel that I need to create things of my own. I've started composing music.
But then I started to listen to jazz a lot. And I really want to learn improvising and composing it myself.

But I don't know where to start.

Isn't there a good book about how you can learn to improvise jazz? Or some kind of other method? My piano teacher can't teach me it she said. So I have to do it by myself.

Thanks in advance!
RemcoG

A couple of ideas:

- Listen to a lot of Jazz. All the time. Listen to Chet Baker, Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis...

- Sing along your favorite solos. Notice the articulation and timing.

- Get a couple of Aebersold CDs, and scat along. You can do this in the car, anywhere.

- If you can scat, why not record yourself scatting and transcribe it? Try playing what you sang.

- If you can't scat quite yet, or if you think your solos make no sense at all, solo using only one or 2 notes, for example the 1-3-5 or 7 of the chord. Vary the rhythm. Rhythm is 100 times more important than notes.

- Start with the blues. You can't play bad notes when you stick to a blues scale. You can play out-of-time. Play fewer notes.

- Learn a few licks in all 12 keys. Simple be-bop licks that outline the harmony work well.

- You could look at a couple of books, for example Randy Halberstadt's "Metaphors for the musician", or Hal Galper's "Forward Motion".

- Transcribe. Short phrases. Learn them in all keys and see if you can't stick them into your own solos.

I've only recently started getting into
jazz/popular playing, after many yrs. of
classical piano. From what I've gathered
thus far, improvising is driven by the lt.
hand chords, rather than, say, starting with
an improvised r.h. melody and then trying to
fit chords to that--apparently this is for
very experienced improvisers only; most
beginners can't do it effectively that way.

And when improvising, one should look to
"pair" the l.h. chords as much as possible.
By this I mean that, starting from some
random l.h. chord, the next chord to play
will typically be something that "pairs"
nicely with it. For example, the next chord
could be something that your hand slips
into easily from the previous chord;
for example: D F A C/D F G B--the
shared notes here make it easy to go from
the first to the second chord. Moreover,
a series of chords will tend to be physically
close to each other on the keyboard, either
a half step or whole step apart in their
roots, which makes playing easier and
also makes the music sound "connected"
and "smooth-flowing." As an example,
the series of chord "pairs": C Eb G Bb/
C Eb F A, D F A C/D F G B, F Ab C Eb/
F Ab Bb D, G Bb D F/G Bb C E, A C E G/
A C D F. The r.h. is then driven by
the l.h. chords, that is, the r.h. is
improvised upon the l.h. chords--not
the other way around, which is almost
impossible for a novice.

There are other ways of "pairing" l.h.
chords. For example, the following chord
in a "pair" could be the min. or maj. version of
the previous chord. For example: C Eb C Bb/
C E G B, or vice versa. Maj. and min.
are actually so closely related harmonically
that they can be almost substituted at
will for each other in music. Or the
following chord in a "pair" could be
an inversion of the previous chord--
the same chord really, but with a different
character because of the inversion,
for example: D F A C/F A C D. Or the
following chord in a "pair" could be
a slight alteration of the previous
chord, for example: D F A C/Db F Ab C.
And so forth. Note that in the above,
the chords in a "pair" are either
physically, or hamonically, close to
each other, and the chords in a series
tend to be physically close to each
other. Typically, you don't leap large
distances between chords on the keyboard.

I think knotty presents a great list here, but I'd like to differ with one statement:

You most certainly can play bad notes when sticking to a blues scale (trying hammering on the "4" in the first four bars of a 12-bar form and you'll see). But -- listen to a lot of blues to start hearing that for yourself.

But don't let me minimize what knotty says -- he is spot on with the list.

And I'd like to add one thing...a jazz teacher, and experienced player, once told my jazz group, "rhythm -- that's the sh*t" and I understood what he meant.

You can go all over the place with "poor choices" for notes, but it is extremely difficult to sound like you know what you're doing if you a) play tentatively and b) play with a poor sense of rhythm. That's probably the most common error (in my opinion) that novice players make. They get so hung up on right notes that the rest of it suffers.

I'd like to add two anecdotes to what Guy said.

I was watching Keith Jarrett's documentary and he says something so true. it goes something like:
As you become more experienced an improviser, simplicity becomes increasingly more profound.

An example of this, I saw Barry Harris play for Christmas at the Kennedy center. He played right after Joey DeFrancesco, who is a monster Organist with tons of crazy runs. We all enjoyed Joey very much. But when Barry (78 years old) sat at the piano, it all became quiet. Swing invaded the theatre. Probably 50 times less notes than his companion. But the right notes at the right time. We not only could hear the notes, but we could also hear the rests. It was something.

A Jazz Piano Christmas 2007 is available for free on NPR's web site:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17167237

For me, a key was in Hal Crook's "How To Practice Improvisation" (where he introduces the concept of "Ready - Fire - Aim"!) with a pacing exercise. Along with that, a good dose of listening to early Miles Davis, but there are other examples too. Some masters are really good at laying out a solo and building it over several choruses. Woe to the soloist that used up their best ideas in the first 8 bars!

A guy in one of the bands I was in used the stage name "Les Ismore" :-).

(sorry if my "wrong notes in blues scales" comment sounded harsh -- use of the blues scale is one of my pet peeves -- there was a whole thread on the blues scale a couple of weeks ago)

I am building some web sites dedicated to jazz improvisation.
I can suggest you to study music harmony and try to understand the main concepts about jazz and music in general.
Begin to study all the keys (minor and major) with their chords.
Then there are many other concepts to study and learn: (melody, swing, progressions, substitutions, modulations, imitations, phrasing).
Then remember to develop your ears with ear training exercises but above all transcribing your favorite solos and transposing them in all keys.
Analyze the solo of the greatest improvisers such as Bill Evans, Charlie Parker, Jarrett, Oscar Peterson and many other genius (Miles Davis, Coltrane...).
Analyzing classic music is also important to understand how to compose or improvise.
I have learned much analyzing Mozart's piano Sonatas and many other classical masterpieces.

Listen lots. Play lots.

(And dont worry too much about all the keys to start off with... not many bands want to jam in
Gb:-)

It takes a lot of hard work.
I second the recommendation of
Randy Halberstadt's "Metaphors For the Musician",
AND Hal Galper's "Forward Motion".