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0 pointsm3kw92y ago0 comments

Parrot playing, I do that but I’m only able to play that song and not really improvise much. Any ideas?

0 comments

IMHO - parrot playing is concerned with "what" is being played, and it's OK in the context of non-improvised music.

If you want to learn improvisation it helps to also investigate "why" - why this particular rhythmic figure (e.g as shown in the OP article), why this chord voicing (e.g. block chords? Quartal harmony? Drop-2?), why this melody (e.g. ascending or descending? Arpeggiating the chords or "playing outside"?) etc etc

Edit: One more thing: it's OK to improvise with the help of something like iReal Pro, but nothing replaces improvising with real humans, find a group of like minded people that would like to play with you

cevn2y ago

I played a lot of Chopin, especially the Nocturnes, although none to perfection, and other classical music. That gave me a solid background in music theory, I do believe you could learn all the basics from playing Chopin and thinking about the music.

As an aside, music skill (and many other skills) can be divided into Reading and Writing. Reading consists of either actually reading sheet music, or Playing by Ear. Writing is executing what is in your mind. In the context of improvisation, it's coming up with those things to execute in the first place.

To be honest, I am a good Reader, but a poor Writer myself, and still in the beginning of this part of my journey. I love listening to jazz, and playing along, but devising my own melodies is almost beyond the current me. But what's great about music is that every day you practice is one that you get better.

gerhardi2y ago

Learn scales. When you understand and know the scale of the song you can quickly start improvising then.

Jeff_Brown2y ago

Scales are great -- but before or above that, I would say ear train. It's a secret (literally -- shockingly few musicians know about it given how useful it is) weapon. It only takes 15 minutes a day for a few months to be able to hear a melody and know what's being played (at least in relative terms -- perfect pitch is harder but unnecessary). After that you can literally study by simply listening to music, which is both more rewarding and more enjoyable than practicing patterns.

(Okay, technically a song is a pattern. But it's a really nice one.)

imperistan2y ago

Sounds great. What would you do in those 15 mins a day exactly?

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dgunay2y ago

For me the ability to improvise music emerged slowly after doing a lot of playing other things by ear and embellishing songs either from lead sheets or coming up with premeditated variations on pieces I already knew. But that's just how I did it. If improv is your goal then you could probably benefit from doing it in a semi structured format like 12 bar blues, where it can start very simple and you can build up complexity.

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