I need a book for developing improvisation skills

[devolition]

I took piano lessons in the classical style for most of my childhood, but my improvisational skills have always been lacking. So lately I've been practicing songs from a fake book. I feel like I have a basic understanding of how to voice lead--I don't have a problem doing it very slowly. But I'm looking for practical tips and exercises to improve my ability to sight read and improvise.

 

I know a lot of what I need is just practice and perhaps formal lessons, but I'm hoping there's a book that can help steer me in the right direction. A lot of books that I've looked at seem to be too basic (e.g., How to Play from a Fake Book) or not practical enough.

 

I'm more into pop and rock styles than jazz, but I'm willing to learn from a jazz book if necessary. Does anyone have a favorite book that might help?

[Outkaster]

Really you will have to put yourself into uncomfortable situations and just do it. That is how you grow really. You maybe able to pick of some things that way and get involved in a local music scence. Sight reading gets better by just doing it.

[oletorjus]

I think that trying to learn it from/of something/someone is the wrong aproach to improvising. What I think you should do is rather the opposite. Try to forget everything you was thought in your classical style pianolessons from your childhood, and just sit down at the piano. It is a fact, that you do not need to do more then push the key to make sound. And for this I don't think you need a book to learn. But the fact that you are well known with the piano can be a good thing, as I then suppose that you have good control and contact with your fingers. Then, what I think you should do is just to block out all academic point of view and just play, and listen. Listening is the key. I think that you in this way can build up a more experimental, exiting and refreshing way of playing, because what I have come to the conclusion of is that very many people don't really improvise when they are supposed to or think they are, they are just sound like everybody else when they are improvising, and that makes little sense to me. Pop-improvising. What what what.

 

Well yeah. I think you should try to find a different angle of looking at improvising, because it is in fact a very delicate matter of creativity. You cannot learn to be inspired, nor to be creative.

[augerinn]

I'm sorry, but the title made me giggle.

 

"Give me a book that teaches me how to play without music in front of me. "

 

Think about it...

 

I had a music teacher tell me this when I was 18. (I, of course, igonored him and thought he was full of it). That advice was to listen to other players when they improvise.

[devolition]

There's a fine line between the virtue of being creative and the foolishness of reinventing the wheel, so to speak. Maybe I shouldn't have use the word "improvise". I guess I thought there might be a book that has "case studies" of different common techniques that people use for "improvising"; something for me to start with other than block chords with the LH and melody with the RH. I want to learn to walk with others before running on my own.

 

I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. Practicing and listening.

[Cygnus64]

 

There's a fine line between the virtue of being creative and the foolishness of reinventing the wheel, so to speak. Maybe I shouldn't have use the word "improvise". I guess I thought there might be a book that has "case studies" of different common techniques that people use for "improvising"; something for me to start with other than block chords with the LH and melody with the RH. I want to learn to walk with others before running on my own. I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. Practicing and listening.

 

 

Google Jamey "Jamie" Aebersold. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamey_Aebersold

 

He has lots of books, CDs etc. that might be what you're looking for.

[SynFull Music]

You might find the Sudnow materials of use:

 

http://www.sudnow.com/contents.html

 

Cheers!

[Tomkeen]

 

There's a fine line between the virtue of being creative and the foolishness of reinventing the wheel, so to speak. Maybe I shouldn't have use the word "improvise". I guess I thought there might be a book that has "case studies" of different common techniques that people use for "improvising"; something for me to start with other than block chords with the LH and melody with the RH. I want to learn to walk with others before running on my own. I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. Practicing and listening.

 

 

I've learned a lot by playing with other people and by watching people play. I have a friend who is a great jazz-pianist, and I've learned a lot just by watching how he places his fingers and which tones he played. Another friend (who is also an excellent keyboardist) thought me to just play some chordprogressions and jam away. It's all about feeling actually. Play the notes that you feel are nice.

 

About the watching people play, I noticed myself improving after watching a Spock's Beard DVD and seeing Ryo play. I tried some of the stuff he did, and it worked out pretty good for me.

[SoundwaveLove]

oh, I thought this was a parody thread.

 

Learning to improvise from a book, now that's rich...

[neilgggg]

check out "The jazz piano book" by Mark Levine. he will tell you what these guys are saying, that the only way to learn is to sit down and do it. but he also gives you other tips and highlights recordings to listen to along the way.. it's a great book to have around even if you don't end up following it play by play.

[bdub]

I bought a copy of Band-in-a-Box for practicing stuff like that. It can generate music in a ton of styles and keys on the fly and you can solo over it ad naseum.

[girevik]

The time-tested ways to develop music improvisation skills:

 

1. Play along with recordings of your chosen style (jazz, rock, blues, free improv, flamenco, noise, whatever)

 

2. Copy what bits you can from your favorite improvisers on the recordings used in #1

 

3. Jam with better players than yourself in the chosen style(s). Get at least one of them to become your mentor/teacher.

 

If you don't have recording equipment (a computer, one of those Boss/Tascam/whatever recorders, etc.), get one ASAP.

 

That said, books I have found useful study aids for jazz improvisation (may not be useful if you are into country or some other non-jazz improv):

 

1. One or more of the Real Book series. I have the older "illegal" Real Book and Vol.1 of the New Real Book series by Chuck Sher. Jazz is mostly about learning the tunes - you don't know any tunes, you can't play jazz, pure and simple. Always cross-check whatever tune you pick out of a Real Book vs. a real recording. Some of the most common tunes are easily found in Youtube.

 

2. Building Walking Bass Lines by Ed Friedland. Figuring out walking bass lines over a tune that you're working on is a very efficient learning tool. You learn the chord tones and work on your time at the same time. Great stuff. This book is excellent at introducing the, err... "bassics".

 

You may find some of the Aebersold stuff to be useful too, especially for ideas for comping tunes. If you play a chording instrument, you need to be able to play the melody, the chords, and the bass line of every tune you learn.

[chrisellington]

Unfortunately (for some) and fortunately (for others who simply enjoying hitting the keys)...I believe it all comes from just practicing...

 

Practice chord progressions and practice by turning your favorite tunes (and tunes you aren't familiar with) on the CD player/radio and just start pressing keys...basically you're on a 3-6 minute time limit based on the song length...and just kept doing that...it will come..

 

but with practice...not just from reading...

[SoundwaveLove]

Wash, rinse, repeat.

[yorgatron]

http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/pages.html?cart=343716584344701454&target=smp_detail.html%26sku%3DAP.26066&s=pages-http%253A//www.google.com/search%253Fhl%253Den%2526q%253Dthe%252Btotal%252Brock%252Bkeyboardist%2526btnG%253DGoogle%252BSearch%2526aq%253Df%2526oq%253D&e=/sheetmusic/detail/AP.26066.html&t=&k=&r=wwws-err5

[Longfuse]

 

I feel like I have a basic understanding of how to voice lead--I don't have a problem doing it very slowly. But I'm looking for practical tips and exercises to improve my ability to sight read and improvise.

 

 

To practice your chord/voice-leading go through 6 songs from your Fake-Book per day and analyse the chord progressions in terms of Roman Numerals. Do this away from your instrument. After a while you notice things: the same progressions crop up time-and-time again and most standards are written in only a handful of keys (C,G,F,B flat, E flat & A flat...plus their relative minors).

 

Although things will be slow to start with, after a while (weeks/months) you can just glance at a chord chart and break it down almost immediately. As well as the breakdown, you need to start playing these progressions on the keyboard. Just knowing what the common ones are, though, is half the battle (it concentrates your energies on a practical level). My advice would be to keep things very simple to begin with - 3rd and 7th only - and only get fancy once you have that foundation.

 

As for improvising over these progressions, start transcribing your favourite players and look at what they do. Also look at what's being used in the melody (something that many people overlook). The strongest tones will often be used in melodies and that will give you a good idea of what notes you should be aiming for when playing changes.

 

There's a book of Charlie Parker transcriptions that will teach you a lot of the rules/cliches of Be-Bop. Even played slowly a lot of his ideas sound great. Listening is just as important as transcribing, though. Absorb the music by osmosis. It's amazing how many people try to start improvising, yet don't/barely listen to jazz.

 

Also, start simple. Blues is a good place to begin. Cop a few licks and start learning to play around with those ideas, adapting them to the rhythm/what feels natural under your fingers.

 

It's all subjective at the end of the day, but the above is what helped me learn the ropes.

[Guitarsoul34]

I'd HIGHLY recommend works by Mark Harrison. Top notch music instructor out in Los Angelos, that runs his own series of books that are very successful.

 

-Pop Piano Book: Is a 400 page mammoth that breaks down every type of pop/rock...rock ballads, classic rock, blues, gospel, 70's funk, modern r&b...and really breaks down how to play tons of common riffs, left hand and right hand methods, etc. It comes with audio CD's so you can hear how all the exercises sound, although since you have classical training the site reading probably wouldn't be a problem. EXCELLENT buy, it revolutionized my playing. This book should really help out your playing when it comes to just having a set of chord symbols in front of you, without any lead sheets.

 

-Blues Piano Excellent guide for blues riffs, blues chord progressions, scales, and a nice introduction to jazzy-blues, a good founding step before a first full forray into jazz. This book is only 70-80 pages, but is packed with information. Also has excellent audio CDs to accompany that have slow and fast tracks so you can really hear how the riffs should sound. Covers just about every style of blues you can think of...especially great for left hand walking bass patterns, and a myriad of shuffle bass patterns and chord voicings.

 

Check out the reviews for both on amazon.com...Mark Harrison is the man.

[Guitarsoul34]

Also:

 

-Tim Richards has an excellent book called "Improvising Blues Piano", which along with Mark Harrison's, is the best out there. His "Exploring Jazz Piano" Books 1 & 2 are also very good. Both of these come with well put together audio cd's as well.

Another reviewer said to go for Mark Levine's Jazz Piano...I disagree. It's a wonderful book, but if you're a classical pianist interested in improv, I think Mark Levine's book should be step 2 or 3 on your journey. I think the Harrison and Richards books should come first because they really break down actual licks, or the runs in songs, piece by piece and how to apply them in any key or scenario, as well as a lot of coverage for proper left hand play and all the variations you can do. Seeing them explain it, and then hearing the examples, practicing, and then adding in what your own ears hear for half a year...you'll be surprised at how much you can learn. Only after that would I go for Jazz Piano by Levine, where he'll get into more complex scales, fingers, two hand voicings, and higher level type chords to improv with.

 

All reviewers are correct though when they say USE YOUR EAR...and listen to a lot of rock, blues and jazz music over and over so that your head has it inside you, and then start to tinker around with your hands, copying it from memory. You'll pick it up with practice. Good luck!

[Longfuse]

Trawling you tube, this guy seems to have a decent set of lessons in basic blues (especially considering they're free):

 

http://uk.youtube.com/results?search_query=30+Must-Have+Blues+Piano+Licks&search_type=&aq=f

 

All pretty simple, but these licks crop up time and time again in blues and rock (albeit in a more complicated form much of the time). As good a starting place as any...