Start Piano Improvisation By Just Being Playful With The Melody

Good morning, this is Duane. Today I’d like to talk about beginning piano improvisation. Improvisation of course means to play notes other than the ones that are written. Let’s take a simple tune like “A Foggy Day in London Town,” and the tune goes like this.

Okay, that’s the basic tune. Now if you’re going to improvise on that I advise you to start out very simply, very simply, and just be playful with the melody. Usually when people begin to improvise they try to do way, way too much. They see some great pianist like Oscar Peterson on piano on television and they try to emulate it. I used to do that too.

I’ve got good news for you. You’re not Oscar Peterson and neither am I so you don’t have to do what he does, and furthermore, unless you have the talent of Mozart you can’t do what he does, so let’s be satisfied with what we have. I suggest that if the melody goes like this, you might do something like this. See that? I played with the melody but I’m very playful. It’s C chord so I want, instead of just G, I want G, G, E, G, B flat. Now the next note is A so I’m going to go B flat, C, B flat, A. Then I might go down a half step.

Okay, you get an idea of what I was doing? I was just playing neighboring tones and chord tones and just being playful. You could hear the melody all the way through; I didn’t depart from the melody. A lot of people when they start out playing they think they can’t include the melody at all. That’s a mistake. Stay close to the melody when you’re just starting, okay? Stay very close. We’ll let Andre Previn and Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans do what they do but you better stay close to the melody and just be playful with it. That way it will be more enjoyable but also for your listeners, because if you play too far off the melody when you’re not a great pianist then people get lost.

That’s my little sermon for the day and I hope that helps a little bit. If you enjoy these little piano tips come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips. Hope to see you there. Bye bye for now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4eubUpqlOo&feature=youtu.be
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