Improvisation

[Mustainez]

I got Total Keyboard Wizardry book for Christmas. It is amazing, I love practicing know, but I need help improvising. I can practice a left hand rhythm for ever, but when I start a melody with my right hand, it all falls apart. I have a sound in my head, but I don't know how to play it. Any advice? Thanks!

[Praul]

Hi there,
I had lots of trouble with that too :smile:
I tried doing scales over the left hand rythms, trying to figure out how the different notes would sound. I started by playing scales in half notes and went up from there.
Then I tried creating slow melodies while playing the left hand thing. Mostly, you just have to get used to it and practice alot.

Hope the idea helps. Good Luck!

[Mustainez]

Thanks for your post!

[lkin3]

I've heard in many jazz technique videos and books that its helpful to kind of 'envsion' a melody in your head and sing it aloud trying to play the melody in your RH as you sing. Keith Jarrett does this alot in his improvised recordings, and I find it really helpful for improvising and for getting better at transferring ideas from your head onto the keyboard quickly.

[Ghostlord101]

I started getting my improvisation up by building it up slowly: first with just chords, then a simple alberti bass (eg. for c major: c-g-e-g), then arpeggios and scales like walking basses (c major:c-e-g-a-Bb-a-g-e-c) and then moving on to changing the rhythm away from just on-beat crotchets, changing it a bit at a time as my left-hand got used to playing different things.

The same process goes for the right hand to some extent, at least rhythmically. It's much easier to play something that is on the beat than it is to play off-beat, so sticking on the beat until your secue with that, and then adding in the occasional difference.

[normthesamurai]

Yeah keeping a steady left hand rhythm going while you improvise a melody with the right is really hard. One excesise I find good is to sing the melody notes as you play them. This ensures that you are playing what you want to play and not just going into automatic mode (Eg: " I'll just do some Amin scales there and it will sound good")

Also start simple, slowly and with a metronome, just do left hand bass on every first note of each bar and keep the notes you play down to 3 or four. For example say you're going to improvise using D, C, Ab F. Then take it in turns improvising a melody for a few bars and then play back that melody while you improvise the bass for a few bars I think Jordan has a similar excersie in the OC.

Another good one for developing a improvising mindset is something I picked up from Steve Vai; get a dictionary and pick a random word or phrase. It might take a few go's to find a word that evokes the emotions needed to be able to translate into music but once you find a good one, just sit down and think about how the best way to describe that. It could be a melody, a song or just a single chord.
This might sound a bit our there but it is really good in developing individuality in you're improv's