Fancy a bit of piano improv?

[Aosta]

[mimidancer]

Nah, that is piano 101

[selig]

Nah, that is piano 101

“Play notes in the scale” is good, if obvious, advice! But all I hear is scale wise noodling, so maybe it’s “noodling 101?”. No thematic development, no overall structure. It doesn’t even sound like “jamming”, as you might hear with a blues or jazz band.

Improvising doesn’t mean just playing whatever comes into your head, even if it starts there. Remember, every conversation we have with other people is an improvisation. We say things we didn’t know we were doing to say and do it effortlessly. We also (hopefully) make sense and follow a thread line, and in some way literally or abstractly we tell a story. If we had a conversation that was random and based solely on whatever popped into our head we wouldn’t be able to follow each other.

All to say an improvisation doesn’t have to sound like one, you can “improve” full songs with practice, creating verse/chorus structures in real time if you like. Doesn’t have to sound like noodling up and down a mode or scale, which I don’t find very listenable myself.

[mimidancer]

Nah, that is piano 101

“Play notes in the scale” is good, if obvious, advice! But all I hear is scale wise noodling, so maybe it’s “noodling 101?”. No thematic development, no overall structure. It doesn’t even sound like “jamming”, as you might hear with a blues or jazz band.

Improvising doesn’t mean just playing whatever comes into your head, even if it starts there. Remember, every conversation we have with other people is an improvisation. We say things we didn’t know we were doing to say and do it effortlessly. We also (hopefully) make sense and follow a thread line, and in some way literally or abstractly we tell a story. If we had a conversation that was random and based solely on whatever popped into our head we wouldn’t be able to follow each other.

All to say an improvisation doesn’t have to sound like one, you can “improve” full songs with practice, creating verse/chorus structures in real time if you like. Doesn’t have to sound like noodling up and down a mode or scale, which I don’t find very listenable myself.

I think it might help a first-year player understand you can't be wrong if you stick in a mode. But not being wrong; does not mean good.

[selig]

I think it might help a first-year player understand you can't be wrong if you stick in a mode. But not being wrong; does not mean good.

Agreed, but that applies to all music - stay in the scale and you are ‘safe’.
Improvising is more than just playing notes in the scale (was my point), and in fact things may sound VERY basic if that’s all you do, with the music from this video being a great example. I agree with the “notes in the scale are safe bit”, but not the idea that improvisations will “work” as long as the notes are in the scale.

What he was playing sounds like a fully random note/rhythm generator going through a Scales & Chords set to melodic minor! It wasn’t musical to my ear, only “noodling”…

[mimidancer]

I think it might help a first-year player understand you can't be wrong if you stick in a mode. But not being wrong; does not mean good.

Agreed, but that applies to all music - stay in the scale and you are ‘safe’.
Improvising is more than just playing notes in the scale (was my point), and in fact things may sound VERY basic if that’s all you do, with the music from this video being a great example. I agree with the “notes in the scale are safe bit”, but not the idea that improvisations will “work” as long as the notes are in the scale.

What he was playing sounds like a fully random note/rhythm generator going through a Scales & Chords set to melodic minor! It wasn’t musical to my ear, only “noodling”…

I believe we agree. I am influenced by Charlie Parker as it pertains to improv. “It's just music. It's trying to play clean and looking for the pretty notes."

[jam-s]

Just to give some contrast I think this piece here is a good improvisation session. Despite having a few "errors"/accidentals and some imperfections regarding the recording it's got some very nice themes and a great kind of build up and progression: