Simpedia

Improv Ideas

Found in: Composition & Improvisation

Mark M., New York

So I’ve come up with a number of my own improv ideas, poured over Sheri Reingold’s Games presentation/handout as I’d mentioned, and also reviewed all Simpedia items after searching on “improv.” Still, obviously I recently shared an improv idea — the “talking melody” — that didn’t appear anywhere, so I wonder what other improv ideas/activities/exercises/assignments are hiding out there somewhere. The more ideas I have for this improv-only workshop I’m developing, the better. If anyone has anything they’d care to share, please do! Thanks 🙂

Winnie B., Colorado

One I like is doing 7note tunes on the 3 black notes, ending on Bb for a question. (The 7th note is longer to make 8 beats) The partner student tries to mimic the pattern of notes, ending on Gb for an answer. It trains the ear to repeat patterns, and is easier than it sounds!

Sue K. , AU

I have recently been having great fun with blocks. We talk about building blocks so I started to show what I meant.

Write individual sentences on each block – sentence 1 DCT RH, Fur Elise LH Sent 1 or whatever. Your student pulls 2 (or 3 or 4) blocks and puts them together. The lego blocks work really well as they can actually be stuck together directly over the top, slightly overlapping or however you want and they still support each other.
Look at different ways to play them together to represent the way the blocks have been put together. Take them apart and put them back in a different way.

There are no hard and fast rules to this, but it has really helped me to see how endless the options are with a selected group of notes.

Mark M., New York

Since Sheri brought up STP w/r/t the “talking” melodic improv and a couple of people have written me with related questions, I thought I’d mention something about this.

I think this is, as with all things, a question of destinations as opposed to starting points. Neither speed nor simultaneity need to be there from the start. The process can be broken down as needed, and, indeed, I’ve broken it down with students who needed it, so I should have mentioned that. At its most broken down, perhaps it would look like this:

  1. Speak a sentence.
  2. Speak it while clapping the rhythm at the same time.
  3. Clap the sentence’s rhythm, without talking.
  4. Clap the rhythm more slowly to get a sense of how to work it into fingers that aren’t used to this kind of improv.
  5. Play the rhythm with the fingers, without talking.
  6. Play and say simultaneously.

At first, maybe you don’t even go to step 6 at all — only when a student seems ready to try that multiple thought process, after however much practice without that step.

From the start, any of these steps can be gone through as slowly — and as simply, in terms of positions and note selections — as needed. Eventually, one would eliminate steps, until one could just go straight to step 6 without any of the previous steps at all, just improvising on the piano as you speak a sentence for the very first time.

Then eventually after that, one could just think the sentence while playing. And eventually after that, eliminate the verbal sentences altogether, having internalized language-like rhythms for improvising with the fingers.

Like with many things, some students may catch on fast, some may take months to traverse these steps. It takes as long as it takes. Each step can be taken as slowly as needed.

Even extremely broken down, each step is still working with language as a path to melodic improv and can hopefully make a big impression when first introduced.