Improvisation

Friday, February 28, 2020 by Gary Johnston | 21-Day Challenge

These past couple of days I've been working on my improv. 

What?! Isn't improv just made up as you go along.

Yes, but mostly no.

There are a lot of parameters to consider when improvising. Things like:

  • What key are you in?
  • What are the chords most common to that key?
  • What scales may be associated with the key and it's chords.
  • Plus many other things as you get more and more advanced.

For the beginner, no matter what the instrument, you can just add the odd "extra" note here and there to a piece you can already play to augment the melody or insert a scalar run or add notes to the harmony (accompanying chord) to add colour to the sound OR remove notes from the melody or harmony.

You can play the I, IV and V7 chords in the LH (piano) and improvise in the RH eg: in the key of C the chords will be C, F and G7 and you can use notes from the C major scale (the white keys) to build a melody.

If you know the blues scale find a backing track on YouTube and play along on the uke or piano.

Keep it light. Keep it fun!

PS: We've made it "over the hump" of our 21-Day Challenge. Congratulations! Keep up the amazing work.