Improvise now: the basics

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i'm from montreal, canada. Not used to winter yet

Hi I’m Joseph. I just wanted to make that thread to talk to you about my passion. Playing piano and improvising. I play piano since I’m 7 years old. Now many people told me that they have no clue of where to start to improvise with their musical instrument. I always give the same answer. Forget about what you think improvisation is. You see too many musicians think in some way or other that improvisation is filling the most notes in on bar. So the most common consequence is that the improvisation sounds like going up and down the scale. Up and down. You’ll be surprised how that natural reaction is set deep in our subconscious. We got to fight that, ok? How? By understanding that improvisation is first rhythm. Now that is especially true if you want to play jazz or blues music. You gotta have that groove first, gotta have that swing, that rock and roll thing first. Then you add more notes.
So here an exercise I love. It’s to play the chords I want to improvise on and then play the fewer notes I can. Be sure that the note is in the chord at the beginning. If you have a chord change and both of them have a common note (let’s say F and C chords have C in common) then keep that one note until the next chord. Now, we are going to work on the groove. You can play the single note as much as you like but the solo has to be hip. It must swing. In fact you must have fun doing it. Make it the most beautiful possible you can. Playing on one note will give you the time to feel what you are doing, to dance on your music (yes I always dance on my music. If I don’t there’s something wrong). Work to be right on the rhythm. When you feel you get it, add another note. By example, you will play on c and e-flat on the blues chords. Then 3 notes. Then 4 notes.
This technique works on any style. Blues, jazz, trance (there is more and more live and improvisation music in electronic music). It’s just the rhythm style that changes.
If you have any questions, don’t be shy, ok? I’ll be happy to help you. Hey, I’m there for you :0)
Have fun practicing. It’s the only thing that counts (except having fun in a gig).
 
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would be nice to have other tricks on improvisation like by examples how to play notes that are not in the chords you play and thing like that.

THanks
MJ
 
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Learning to improvise on the notes that not part of a triad (three note chord) is where working with scales (especially minor/blues) can guide you. The melody of the song you're playing is also a good template to use when learning how to solo around in a song. Learn the melody, then experiment with individual note slides, half-step note shifts, two note and triplet runs, octaves, etc.
As the original poster said, experiment.
B3
 
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Thanks for this great topic! I jam with these Grateful Dead folks. They never have an agenda...they just pull out a bunch of songs I don't know. (I was never a Deadhead.) So I really learned to improvise. I'm not sure of their chord changes so I play a quick note and if it's not in their chord I will just move on to the next note real quick until I find one that fits. If you do it fast enough, it will just sound like "jazz" and people won't realize you played a wrong note! Also, the 2nd and 4th notes in the chord are great "fakes" because they are neither major or minor. In fact I like to use these when doing 'ambient' music. When I use these in a jam, it gives my chords an ambient, mystical feel. (Or so I hope.)

I don't know anything about theory or music, but this has just been my strategy in the 2 years that I have been jamming & learning keyboards.
 

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