Hi everyone, I'm a beginning piano student and what concerns me is that I don't want to be someone that cannot play without sheet music. How does a person go about learning to improvise? What are the required skill sets..? I think jazz is such an esoteric skill that I wonder if it's an inate ability? At some point you have to free yourself do you not? You have to let the pulse and rhythm within take over. I'm at a point after nearly a year of study where I want to branch out of classical and head toward more contemporary type genres. Can anyone help me get started in the right direction?

Thanks

Sometimes just jamming in one key with one scale, for example C lydian, is helpful. That way you can concentrate on making phrases and such. Also try singing a line and then repeating it on the piano. That'll help you a lot, too. Oh, and listen to a whole lot of CDs with improvisation on them.

Jazz is not the only improvisational music. Many, if not most, of the important composers in the realm of "serious" music were also very good improvisers - some famously so. Go ahead and improvise on the music you're learning now or music you're already listening to. Just change the melody, the rhythm, the accompaniment, etc.. Play with it. Have fun. If you want to play Jazz, then school yourself in that genre, but there is a stylistic and historical structure in Jazz that will take additional effort. and a lot of time.

Get a theory book, like Mark Levine Jazz Piano book.

You are going to need to understand scale theory to be able to play jazz. Knowing what scale goes best with a particular chord in a given context is the premise of jazz improvisation...

My advice is to do a self analysis of your desires to play jazz. It is a wide based field of taste and steeped in historic traditions. Nobody is restricted in their style, be it any of the styles up to the present.

Listen to a wide range of pianists. Some have extemely difficult techniques which may inspire you to emulate, or not!

I have been playing a very long time but I only play solo at home and sometimes do playalong with other pianists/bands which is very pleasurable to me. It is easy to find the key if you can play by ear and if you cannot this is the moment to try and do so.

You're certainly correct to mention pulse and rhythm without that basis I do not relate with jazz. Though some may differ on that point.

My favourite pianists are Oscar Petersen (Montreaux Jazz Festival 1977 DVD) that should set your pulse going in spite of the awful camera shots!); Art Tatum; Teddy Wilson = 'Total Perfection'; Any of the good stride pianists like Ralph Sutton. Tuition from Dick Hyman on TV show recordings; and so on to the latest modern stylists.

Alan

To me the difference between playing with and without music is that when you learn just to read the notes you are learning only one dimension. The way to learn to improvise is to really know the instrument and to really know the instrument you have to learn theory. Learn all of your scales and learn the chords, and all of their inversions. What Heywood said is exactly what you need to learn, what scale goes best with a particular chord. I couldn't improvise a thing until I started to learn my scales, my chords and all of a sudden, I just started to improvise. Start with the key of C, play a C major chord in your left hand and improvise with your right hand using the C scale. It's amazing what you'll come up. If you have a good ear, try playing a song in the key of C and use the C chord. Good luck..P.S. a good jazz teacher can take you there..

Hey everyone getting close to a year of lessons doing mostly classical but tonight I just sat down at the piano to try to improvise a little just to see if I could come up with something jazzy that sounded good. It was pretty rough but I think I made some progress. I was just arpeggioing (sp) dominant 7ths in the left hand and trying to match up some nice scale runs in the right hand while not messing up the base in the left. what do you guys think of just sitting down at the piano and trying to use your theory knowledge and inate rhythm to bust out some stuff? It was a helluva lot of fun

Around 95% of my piano playing is free improvisation; for me that's what my music is all about. I do play some classical, some jazz and a lot of ragtime. I have amassed a heap of compositions, and these are almost always based on significant (to me) ideas which have occurred during improvisation.

I never use rules, theories, "shoulds" or "ought tos" though; the only "rule" I use is my ear. Neither do I try to imitate playing styles and forms of the past, no matter how accomplished their proponents.

Part of the delight of this is that I never know what a session will produce - everything forms itself organically, so to speak. It's hard to describe this process or the effect it has on me, let alone teach it to somebody. The first major step, it seems to me, is to get rid of inhibition, which undertaking took me almost ten years when I was young - but I was probably a laggard in this respect.

In any case, keep doing it - you will never regret it as you get older.

So I'm not wasting my time even if my improvisation sounds pretty uneven and unmatched? It's very difficult to separate the hands but I wonder if that will just come with repeated effort. Just sitting there trying to keep a simple constant base line going with a melody line on top is a challenge for me. Let alone trying to change chords,rhythm, and the melody. Hopefully it will continue to get better as hand independence progresses and my ears improve. Let me know if anyone thinks I could be putting my time elsewhere.

You are not wasting your time just sitting down and improvising..for 20 years I concentrated on reading the notes...very rarely did I ever just sit down and play without music. So I can play a pretty good Mozart Sonata, but so what, so can 1,000's of other pianists..I think creativity and improvising is great...with classical lessons I could never compose, but now that I'm taking jazz piano I can..it brings out your creativity because you have to learn to improvise. I noticed that trying to sing or scat a melody in my head first really helps with improvsing.

Take a simple song you can almost hum in your sleep (Three Blind Mice, Frere Jacque, and similar), and keep playing it -- over and over and over. Soon enough, you'll start improvising with phrasing, arpeggiation, different chords, and so on. You know more than you realize about what sounds good. This approach builds confidence to work within the song yet develops the needed sense of freedom.

I'd be leery of too much scale work. Some is good, and scales (in whatever way you work them) can sound interesting, but ultimately they are too rigid. Budding rock guitarists often fall into this trap when learning to make licks. They'll develop phenomenal chops, but listening to it is about as enjoyable as reading a dictionary.

Translating what you hear in your head (through the piano) is the goal -- without question!

Now what you should strive to do is get good ideas flowing in your head. You could listen to the players you admire of course. You could sing little diddys and modify them slightly with continuous iteration.

Now comes the technical part translating what you hear to what you play. You could hunt and peck around the keyboard to find it. Or you could practice scales to get certain kinds of sounds in your head to relate to. If you hear something played by Oscar Peterson that sounds cool, having played your scales you know he is playing a bebop mixolydian lick. Miraculously, this will minimize you hunting and pecking.

Some people don't like scales. As a technical learner, I find them useful whereby they give me framework to compare a musical phrase I just heard to one I know. Moreover, playing scales opens up ideas and the different colors help fuel the creative process.

Practicing scales doesn't have to be boring. Try playing an Ab major scale over a C triad, Db triad and an Eb Major triad and tell me that same major scale sounds the same... GO ahead try it!

This is true about scales. Songs are written in them, after all! This was actually a revelation to me when first learning. I have no idea what I was thinking before that moment. (Most of the time I had a German teacher, in Germany (father was stationed there), and I didn't understand explanations.)

When picking out a song by ear, my first step is knowing at least whether it's in a major or minor key. That alone reduces much hunting and pecking.

Which leads me to ear playing, which was the other part of your question, thomosh.

People have an ear in varying degrees. Whatever the skill level, though, it can always be improved with practice.

I used to be able to play a song by ear only if I liked it a lot. I had to almost swoon before my ear would be sensitive enough to recall it and play. This was pretty limiting (limited taste in songs?), so I started working at catchy jingles heard on TV, a snippet of a song on the radio, things like that. It still had to excite me, but by working on smaller pieces, I got more experience.

The effort to recall and play these bits and such broadened my tastes and developed my ear. Chords, though, still require an extra effort. I must listen harder to get them approximately right.

improvising is definitly not an easy task, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes very simple.

i used to play piano for 6/7 years, but finally quit because i hated it. but! later i learned a little bit of chord structure, and started practicing familiar songs with jsut the chords written, and now i play keyboard for a church worship team! to be honest, i can hardly read music anymore, but it doesnt really matter. i can just listen to someone playing a song,figure out what key its in, and follow along. =)

in my opinion, the key to improvising is learning to recognize how the notes sound, learning theory,[although i dont know much about it], and learning all the different key signatures and such. or you might be lucky enough to have an ear for improvising.

i find that playing music right off of sheet music or a classical music is quite boring, and structured, and gives me no freedom whatsoever.. but its good to learn the basics, be familiar with the piano, and the notes, then you can run with it!

goodluck!

I don't know much about Jazz, (or Jazz Piano for that matter because I play flute) but I do know the main part is it comes from you soul, from what you feel. So try to let yourself go when you improv. Think happy thoughts.

thomosh

I have got something that might help you.

1) Learn a simple LH voicing for a II-V-I-I
2) Understand the local key you are in, and know the major scale that goes with it.
3) As you are comping your LH voicings (with a metronome), improvise over the scale with your RH.

Now do this in all 12 keys as you will find certain phrases come more naturally in other keys.

This should keep you busy for at least two weeks.

It's kept me busy for almost 20 years!!!

Do you mean, for instance in C Maj, to play D-G-C-C in quarter notes at 4/4?

I don't understand-- what do you mean by play "over" the triads? And I assume you do not mean simultaneously over the three triads, right?

Would that be, for instance,
Db-Eb-E-F-Gb-G-Ab-Bb-C-Db;
then Db-Eb-F-Gb-Ab-Bb-C-Db;
then Db-Eb-F-Gb-G-Ab-Bb-C-Db ?

By "play over," I think he means that you play the triad in your left hand and then improvise lines in your right.

Thanks for clarifying that -- I guess I made it a lot more complicated that was intended!

For the II-V-I-I exercise, you should play each chord for a four beat measure in the LH. RH is free to play whatever sounds right over the major scale.

This is the II-V-I-I progression in the key of C:

/ Dm7 / G7 / Cmaj7 / Cmaj7

Dm7 = D-F-A-C or inversions
G7 = D-F-G-B or inversions
Cmaj7 = C-E-G-B or inversions

For LH you can play 4 quarters if you want (a la Errol Garner) or you can just play whole notes -- whatever is easiest at this point. The goal is to stay in time and get a feel for how the major scale (RH) "fits" over each chord.

The Phrygian exercise I was referring to can very well be played in four, but I generally do this one in 3 (waltz).

LH:
C maj (first bar of 3s), Db maj (second bar of 3s), Eb Maj (two beats of 3s), Db Maj (third beat of 3s), C maj (fourth bar of 3s)

RH:
You basically want to be improvising a line using the Ab maj scale. This major scale will sound distinctly different over each of the chords in the LH, but won't sound like any Major scale you've ever played before. It sounds Phrygian (C-based) over these harmonies.

Try it and you will be instantly transported to another world!

Haywood,
I played your II-V-I-I improv suggestion and realized that it's the progression for a song I have on my list to learn. Now I have it, thanks! It's "Sunday Morning" by Maroon 5. The whole song is this progression.

Thanks so much to you and Gregjazz and other contributors of jazz progressions and voicings. I don't always contribute, but I'm often saving your ideas.

You make this forum great; keep it coming.

You'll find hundreds of songs that employ this progression.

Another one is I-VI-II-V or C - Am -|Dm - G7 -|.

Hundreds...

ok Giles.....I have to admit i'm impressed with your knowledge of theory. The first ten years of my piano life evolved around the circle of fifths. But I've noticed from your posts that you automatically call your VI and II chords as minor. I'm a dixieland guy from the getup and the only minor chords called for in a tune (that I know of) is the fifth ONLY after the VII. Example.. I VII III VI II V I. The rest are all major chords. I have to ask you this... are you a stride pianist playing stride tenths with your left?? I'm simply wondering what the difference
is between our styles of jazz, therefore theory. Thanks

You can always try to jazz up the chords a little. For example, if the fake book or lead sheet just has a plain C chord, it often sounds better and richer to play a C6; Instead of C7, try a C9 or a C7 with a flatted 9th.

In a major scale,

The I chord (1st degree of scale) = Major

The ii chord (2nd degree of scale) = minor

The iii chord (3rd degree of scale) = minor

The lV chord (4th degree of scale) = Major

The V chord (5th degree of scale)= dominant

The V1 chord (6th degree of scale) = minor

The V11 chord (7th degree of scale) = half diminished

fingers

Another practice/performance method is to simplify the left hand voicing to free up the right hand. Bud Powell did exactly that.

For example:

Using Haywood's ii/v/1 pattern, the left hand could be voiced as: root-flat7/ root-3/ root-7

So in C Maj. the left hand voicing would be:
D-C/ G-B/ C-B. This makes for easy and short connections and good voice leading.

FWIW, there is another style which eliminates the root altogether(rootless voicings) This can be clearly heard in Bill Evans.

Hope this helps.

fingers

Yeah, using those major 7th intervals in the left hand can sound really good. Rootless voicings are very important, too, especially if you're playing with a bass player.

hgiles....WAKE UP!!!!! Where are you?

Don't ever forget the most important way to learn how to play improvisational piano.

Write. Write. Write.

I firmly believe that the KEY to taking music to the next level, is composition.

Make a decision to start writing a piece.. for whatever reason, and work on it. Try out new ideas. Learn why the chords sound the way they do. Why some chords go with others. The theory only "Trully" makes sense if you can apply it. Then you can use it to your advantage.


Ghost Notes