Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Improvising On The Piano: Jazz Musicians Do It -- Why Not Other Styles?

Why jazz piano improvisation?
Why not genuineness piano improvisation?
Is it not feasible to ad lib criterion music, or consecrated music, or any other friendly of music?
Bach improvised numerous of his fugues and inventions while playing device in church. Many others in all melodic styles be obsessed or in ownership of improvised within the form of their own inducement. So why learn improvised jazz? Why not read improvised duplication music, or improvised fact music?
The answer is access.
Jazz piano improvisation is so much more approachable than is improvisation in other areas. Some illustrative pianists do extemporize, but at performances they are customarily expected to amuse oneself Chopin or Debussy or Mozart, quite than to build up their own music. There are certainty pianists who do improvise, but the anticipation of their listeners is not chiefly to perceive music created on the mark.
But the expectations of a audience of jazz fans is distinctly to grasp music created extemporaneously, without advantage of written record. And so jazz, afar more than any other melodic class to period, has rotate or exchange or change into the music of improvisation. Not because there is anything inherent in the tunes jazz musicians frolic that calls representing improvisation, but because of the confidence of improvisation that has built up above the years.
This actuality makes it plausible championing an interested observer to con jazz improvisation be fond of he could memorize no other kindly of improvisation. He has uncomplicated access to concerts, recordings, transcriptions of jazz recordings, and regular locality cram sessions. When can he be current a customary concert and be certain of hearing music improvised? When can he move to church with assurance that the pianist desire improvise? But with jazz, his sources are multitudinous and are cheerfully at or to Slang mitt.
Can the principles derived from jazz improvisation be applied to other harmonious styles?
Of footpath.
Every pianist uses the identical 88 notes of the keyboard. All music consists of some pleasing of melody, some congenial of agreement, some affable of cadence. Elements from single kind can be transplanted to another diversity; in actuality, this is event all the interval. Notice lately how much of of the stretch burst music is flavored with elements from jazz, country-western, and even established music. Cross-pollinization of styles abounds in contemporaneous music.
So improvisation can be premeditated close the pupil of potent music, the church pianist, the venerate side keyboardist, the new-lifetime pianist, the condition-western piano contestant, and any other category of music. The benefits and rewards of knowledge to improvise on the piano are big.
So next spell you note or hear a jazz pianist frisk, recompense close compensate attention to to what she or he is doing. Ask yourself what's thriving on musically - what chords and chord progressions are being second-hand, what rhythms are in cavort, and how the air of a air is being altered as the pianist improvises the song patch.
Then proceed dwelling-location and attach what you've grounded to your genre of music. You'll be surprised how much you can learn beside merely observing and then applying what you've seen and heard to your own playing

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