Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner How did you learn to improvise?

Seeing as we're talking about improvising, I thought I'd ask how you started improvising? And what methods did you find greatest success?

I learned only classical as a kid, so I never improvised until I was in my early 20's. Then I found jazz and the light turned on. But being self-taught I went through many frustrations and mistakes.

Looking back, I think the key to improvising well comes down to 2 things:

LISTENING- We need to listen and build up our musical knowledge before we are even able to say anything.

I've probably listened to over 1000 jazz records. There's a distinct sound for jazz, as there is to classical, rock, bossa nova, country.

I started playing by ear, hearing a jazz song and figuring it out on the piano.

This one skill alone will help immensely in improvising. Just as a baby learns a language by imitating what mom and dad speak, so we learn a musical "language" the same way.


THEORY- learning the structure of music and how it works.

Jazz and pop/rock music follow a very structured approach. The chord progression 2-5-1 is fundamental in jazz, and many pop/rock songs are 1-6-4-5 or variations of that.

Know your scales and chords. We can hear the difference between a major and minor scale. Same with a major, minor, dominant chord. They all serve a specific purpose in music.

Most songs end on a 1 chord of the key it is in. If you ended on a 5 chord, the song sounds incomplete, left hanging or unresolved. The 5 chord has a specific role in leading the ear to the 1 chord.


I read alot of different advice on these forums on how to learn improvising. Some like Gyro will say just sit down and play whatever comes to your mind. Sure, now have you heard a 3 year old kid plonking on keys, how good does that sound?

Start listening ALOT to the music you like. Hear the melody and how it moves. Go to the piano and play it, just the right hand. Look at what scale is being used. There will be many patterns and motifs that repeat and begin looking familiar.

I'm interested in hearing people's journey on how they started improvising. And if you don't, today's as good a day as any!

I started by learning a few chords and diving in. As far as what you need to begin improvising, I would say two things as well...

Knowledge of a few chords
The ability to suspend judgement and just play

By the way, there's nothing wrong with Gyro's approach - if it works for him.

I improvised as a kid. It is hard for me to tell how I learnt it, but I probably just picked up small sequences form pieces I knew, and rearranged them and somehow made my own music out of it.
I still improvise within the style of music I'm acquainted to. However, I'm absolutely uncapable of doing jazz improvisation. I simply don't have the jazz chords and rythms under my skin.

True there's nothing wrong with Gyro's approach, I just want to hear the results to see if it's valid.

I bet if you poll all the pianists who improvise, less than 5% would say they just sit down and play random stuff. They are thinking melody, lines, underlying harmony, where the music is going, the mood and textures of the song.

To be able to just sit and play you need to be a true master, like Keith Jarrett. He can pretty much play anything, so the music he makes actually sounds good.

Try that with a guy who's had only a year of piano and see what happens.

No use comparing oneself to Jarret or anyone for that matter. I like your sentence here but I would turn it around to read ...

"To be a master you need to just sit down and play." The real key is the word "play" since so many adults try and make it much more difficult than it has to be.

It might sound very rudimentary, but sometimes I start with a piece I like in my head, like a piece by Chopin, and go from there, modifying, improvising, mostly maintaining the same "mood" though.

Just made it up as I went along.

I had great choir teachers in junior high and high school that taught aural skills and theory. From that, I learned a bunch of popular songs by ear, adding in little things here and there. (Everything from Enya to Billy Joel to Pink Floyd) I then joined jazz band in high school and did some improvising there. I knew maybe 5 chords and two blues scales, but spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours on it.

All of it was basically trial-by-error and tinkering around at the piano thinking "I wonder what this would sound like." When I found things that sounded good (a chord progression, or even a few notes that sounded catchy), I'd write it down.

In college, I learned to read figured bass in theory classes and joined the chamber orchestra where I'd realize harpsichord parts to Torelli symphonies and things.

After I was out of school, I started sitting in with some friends who had a regular jazz combo gig. Learned a lot of standards with them and practiced along with Aebersold a fair bit.

hey Kreisler, you said you played a morning jazz gig, where in the world would you play at that hour?!

The thing with Gyro is, even if you sit at the piano and just "play" I guarantee you'll be playing things you know like the major or minor scale, or chords. Your fingers will be guiding your mind, rather than the other way.

To truly play random stuff, you would actually have to think hard about it. I just tried it right now.

Played a D major 7th chord in the bass, superimposed on an Eb minor scale melody in the right hand. Weird but kinda neat. And then did some chord progressions I'd never play, like a C diminished to C # lydian to D dominant, all the while playing in Bb major in the right hand. Weird!!

eweiss, even with your improvs you are clearly thinking in terms of chords and structure. ( One song you posted was moving between 2 major 7th chords I think.)

I mean, try playing a melody where you switch from D major to F minor to B major to Ab minor every bar. It will sound horrible! There won't be any flow or pattern that the ear could latch onto.

If you've ever heard of some atonal free jazz, you'll know what I mean. Cecil Taylor or even Thelonius Monk isn't most people's cup of tea.

I accompany a couple of the modern dance classes at the local university.

I was improvising before I ever had a lesson as a small child - in the sense of Gyro's "dig in" and see what sounds good. As to whether that's "valid" - well it depends what your aims are, and what style you're playing in.

When I started learning piano and reading music, I started composing. I just thought that's what you do. I read books, so I wrote stories. I played pieces, so I made up pieces. As I progressed, my improvisation (which sometimes became solidified as a "piece" I could write down or repeat at will) was usually modelled on what I was playing.

Formal theory came much later. By then I was into Stravinsky and Bartok, and I improvised and composed in that style too. But my father had taught me to play from lead sheets when I was about 11, so I knew about chords and what was the "right" chord for the sort of popular songs which were around then. And I found that improvising and playing by ear went hand in hand.

When I did my degree the keyboard course was right up my alley - playing (and improvising) from figured bass, harmonising Bach chorales at sight, improvising continuations from a given section of a piece, up to (in my final year) improvising a fugue. (Wot fun! )

Improvising cadenzas for Mozart concertos is great fun also - though I've never been quite game enough to play a totally improvised one in performance! And like others, I've written music which has an improvisatory element, and performed similarly in the music of others.

I don't play jazz so I haven't done any but the most basic jazz improvisation. Life's too short, and I'm basically not that interested in jazz.

I also spent years teaching classroom music where I did a lot of improvisation with the kids - Orff and Kodaly-based, but also less tonally-based sound explorations.

So in a way I also agree with Gyro - just "dig in". As long as you also listen.

Some of the jazz greats are/were heavily influenced by certain classical composers. Herbie Hancock has said Debussy and Ravel were 2 of his favourites, and his style could be called "Impressionist jazz".

Listen to his 2nd song Dolphin Dance and see if you can hear it:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93561473


Same with Bill Evans, his Reflections in D by Ellington is stunning:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92185496

Interesting side note, at 19:00-22:00 of the Bill Evans interview, he talks about pre-planning and having a basic structure in mind while playing. He plays a song in C major and talks about modulating through to a dominant chord and shifting keys, and using a C pedal point.

Bill Evans was one of the greatest jazz improvisers in the world. His approach was completely opposite of what Gyro is suggesting. Who would you rather learn from?

Well I'm not talking about jazz improvisation so it's a non-question. Gyro can make his own decisions. I mentioned his name, but I don't intend to discuss him.

Bill Evan's quote at 25:00 says it all. "Intuition has to lead knowledge, but it can't be on it's own otherwise you'll flounder."

Improvising is the same, whether for jazz, classical, rock and rock or hip hop. Those guys who rap freestyle are still adhering to the structure and rhythms of that style of music.

I am refuting Gyro because all he says is to "just dig in". Well you can't do that without knowing the process behind it or your will sound pretty bad.

Gyro says...



Just dig in!

I don't know if anybody learned to improvise like the way I did(and I would like to know someone who did something similiar to the approach I did), but I first had to learn the chords in the major scale. I read theory in my jazz book, but I didn't understand any of it.

And then, all the pianists told me to copy chords and learn theory and learn licks, and learn scales.

So I did....

I went to learn songs and learn lots of chord progressions of jazz pieces, and I also tried to analyze the music using the music theory I knew. I copied all the chord progressions and I tried to learn dissonant jazz chords and tried to learn them, one by one. Then I tried to make up rules by myself, but after that, I went and studied harmony, and suddenly, it all started to make sense. All the stuff was beginning to click.

After a long process of studying harmony, I finally realize that, in any point in a piece of music, harmony is relative to the harmony around it.

There are no shortcuts to being able to improvise. However, if you want to be able to compose, there are shortcuts. All harmony is determined from scales(and even made up scales- you don't have to stick to standard scales like modes of melodic minor, harmonic minor, major), and you don't even have to learn scales to know what to do. You can pretty much go where ever you want with chords. All you have to do is with chords, you have to place notes between the chord tones.

For example if you had a D major chord - D F# A, you can stick any combination of notes between the chord tones. D Eb F# G A B C# D is an example.

There are no rules regarding dissonance. There is such a chord as A minor 7th Add b9(it comes from G melodic minor) for example. The only rule is that you have to have a dissonant chord stay relative to a certain scale(meaning that, all the notes in a chord must be part of a certain scale).

HAHAHA...that's so funny eweiss. I think of that everytime I say his name!! He must be greek or something.

Glad you're amused Wizard. Actually, that picture looks so good, I might have a Gyro for dinner.

Give me 2 with lamb and extra tzatziki. Mmmmm