Hi all, I'm having trouble improvising with just my right hand or if my left hand is playing whole notes. I cannot mentally count 1, 2, 3, 4 in my head during a solo (I can when reading sheet music) and therefore I cannot play in bars - I have no idea how many bars I'm playing. My clasical piano teacher, who's trying to teach me jazz, suggested I tap my foot. I've tried this but I can't keep track of how many taps I do! I can improvise just fine if my left hand is playing crotchetss or minims but when it comes to whole notes or nothing at all in the left hand I have no idea what a bar feels like. Can anyone give me advice? How od I "feel a bar"?

Cheers

A bar may be too short a time period to feel for some. Try 4 or 8 bars.

I think ed's on to something here. Feel in phrases.

For me, dancing contras and Scottish country dances has helped, for the kind of music I play, because the figures of the dance correspond to phrases in the music. I can do 32-bars of 2/2 dance music in my sleep. And do

Maybe when you're improvising, at least at first, you could try accenting the first beat of every measure in the right hand.

Cathy

Hi Cathy, without a left hand e.g. walking base i can't do this, I don't know when to stress because I don't know which is the 1st beat of the bar.

There are digital metronomes that you can set to make a different sound for the start of each measure. Maybe playing along with that for a while would help you internalize the rhythmic structure.

In my view, when you improvise, there
are no bar lines, no time signatures,
no phrases, no rules. It's all
free playing, liberated from the
confines of what you normally get
in sheet music. Of course, you could
be more restrained when you improvise,
and put in bar lines, and so forth,
but why bother? In fact, just considering
that makes me cringe. Improvising
is the one time where you're free to
express yourself at the piano, and
have some real fun, and really
learn about playing at the same
time. So why spoil it for the sake
of some minor consideration
like bar lines?

Well the thing is I never seem to do well in the quick study part of the Jazz exam. After the 4 bars of sight reading I have do some improvisation for 4 bars with just the right hand. I basically guess when to finish because I have no idea what 4 bars feels like with just the right hand - because I don't know what 1 bar feels like!

Hey, Andy, I'm no expert. But here's what I do sometimes to warm up to improvising. Play the LH as written. Play a single crotchet *only* on the first beat of the bar. Alternatively, play a semibreve (lasts the whole bar). Next bar, different note. Boring, yes, but I get throught the impro in correct time, and next time if I'm feeling really adventurous, I put something on beats 1 and 3.

I do this all the time, this might help.

Play scales with a ratio of 1:2 between LH:RH. In other words play quarter notes on the LH and 8th notes on the RH. This is a typical ratio in jazz playing.

Do ratios 1:2, 1:3, 1:4.

Andy, this is kind of a simple answer but feeling the length of a bar is something that you just have to hear in your head. Playing along with recordings helps with this, Band-in-a-box is helpful too. You might wanna try picking up a few recordings of some jazz standards and listen for a while. Listen for the 1, without counting the 2,3,4. The 1 should eventually become second nature, feels good, sounds like a "starting point" of something. Counting is common in classical music, but a backbeat is not common in classical music. What Jazzwee reccommended is perfect for practising. This helps you subdivide a little bit. Pracise with a metronome with the clicks on beats 2 & 4. Awkward at first but you'll get used to it. Also, you might wanna try simplifying it for practise purposes: Improvise between 2 different chords for like, half an hour until you feel comfortable with the beat. Try just C7 to F7 back and forth. Trying not to overload you here! Good luck!

Cheeze...

Thanks guy will try out your suggestions.

Do you think my problem is related to the fact that I haven't completely internalised the 4 bar "feel"? I often have trouble with the left hand barrelhouse baseline (e.g. C-G then C-A repeatedly) and I either play 2 extra beats or 2 less beats then I'm supposed to before going to the IV chord. If I did internalise the 4 bar feel on the barrelhouse baseline would I automatically feel it in other baselines like a left hand shuffle? Would this also help my problem with not being able to improvise 4 bars without a left hand?

Cheers

I have no idea Andy. All I can tell you is that while I generally have a pretty keen sense of rhythm, when I improvise, I can easily screw up rhythmically. If you want to get a 'feel' for lengths of bars, then one way to do that would be to concentrate on blues for a while. It's easier when you've got a predictable, 12 bar progression that just repeats over and over, and you get more of a feel for where you are in the big picture.