Hello, it's Tom Donald from the London Contemporary
School of Piano. Today I'm going to talk about a topic I'm
very passionate about. And it's a topic I think you need to all know
a little bit more about. And that's improvising in classical music,
improvising in a classical style. Today's video, I'm just going to break down
ways and methods of improvising in, let's say, the Classical Period style, the Classical
Period of Mozart, Haydn, around that period. And I'm going to make some more videos in
the future, about improvising in the Romantic Period style as well. Now, so you should subscribe to our channel
and get those updates. So what we're going to talk about today, before
we start, many of you might think that it's a little bit odd to improvise in classical
music, you're not meant to do it or you're not supposed to do it. Well, I'm going to tell you something that
might be quite revealing to a lot of you. Improvisation plays a huge role in the development
of classical music history. And it is somewhat over the last 100-200 so
years has been slowly, I will even use the word as strongly as sterilised out of the
musical culture. And there are reasons for it. And I won't go into a whole big history lecture
about it, don't worry, but it's important that you know some of the basic reasons why
this has happened. When you go back to the Baroque Period, every
musician every composer, ensemble player was a very knowledgeable improviser, you just
had to be to be a professional musician. And it was quite commonplace for the keyboard
player, the harpsichord player to play of something that is like a lead sheet. That was what we called a figured baseline,
just a baseline that is notated. And the keyboard player has to work out the
chords and the combinations that go with it. No different funnily enough to play in in
a rock band today or in a jazz group today. So where did it all disappearing classical
music even you go as far as Mozart, his piano cadenzas, most of them, he never actually
notated. The cadenzas, you hear in Mozart piano concertos
today had been written by another composer, because Mozart would just simply improvise
them. So it was a very ordinary normal thing for
even the extraordinary players like Mozart to do. And all of the musical culture around it,
improvisation was not seen as some new thing or some odd thing to do in classical music. But what happened in the Romantic Period,
very slowly and surely, it was about the rise of the composer. And it was the first time where composers
could really earn an amazing livelihood for music, which is obviously a wonderful thing. I'm all in support of that. And that was the written notated score, that
really helps the composer preach the message of their music and get their music out there
to other musicians to play it through the guidance of fully notated music. And as the publishing companies really collaborated
with the composers to get the music out there to the rest of the world very, very slowly,
we started reaching this new paradigm where the composer and the performer became two
completely different things and branched off in their own direction. And that is why today most even some of the
best classical pianist in the world don't really or cannot, or have no training in improvisation. So I advocate, being a bit old fashioned and
bringing that back, yes, improvisations not something new. And by bringing that back, we have so much
joy we can bring to the music. We don't have to live in this world where
we simply obey a score, like it's the words of God or something, I don't know. It doesn't always make sense. And so much of this music was composed through
improvisation as well. When I started digging deeper into classical
improvisation, I realised how similar it is to even improvising on the blues. As far as the procedures and the ways we practice
it goes. So it's really quite fascinating that these
genres of music that are supposed to have nothing to do with each other, actually very
closely related, so I'm really excited to get started with you. So the first thing we're going to do is we're
going to look at a lead sheet, a classical lead sheet lead Let's dig in and have a look
at this. So if you've never seen a lead sheet before,
you should check out our YouTube channel, we have really good video training on how
to play off lead sheets in pop music and in jazz. But here it is in classical music. And guess what, it's pretty much the same
concept. Music is built from chords. These chords I put together though, are particularly
idiomatic to classical chord progression writing, particularly of the time of Haydn and Mozart,
let's say. And traditionally, Haydn and Mozart and Bach
and all these composers would express these chord patterns in their own lead sheets, they
actually use lead sheets back in those days. But the difference was, those lead sheets
were often written in Roman numerals, so you could basically change it into any key. And by the way, we have a special classical
progressions chord pack. So if you head on over to our website contemporaryschoolofpiano.com
and let our team know that you've watched this video, we'll send it to you, we've got
these progressions in a whole bunch of different keys for you to practice it. So you've got some really good resources by
your fingertips. So let's have a look at these chords. And if you've ever come across what we call
these slash chords, that's what we call it in popular music, or inversions, this is where
the base note is different to the chord that you're playing. So for instance, you know, C major, G major
with B in the bass, F major with an A in the bass. So the first thing we're going to do is we're
now going to learn a little pattern for the left hand, no different to our blues videos. But this is a classical pattern. And the name of this pattern is called an
Alberti bass. And you hear it a lot in Haydn and Mozart,
and it sounds and looks like this, I'm going to play an Alberti bass on a C major chord. We do this with the left hand. It's amazing how it reminds me of some blues
shuffles we've been doing in the left hand. It's amazing how so many different styles
of music are still so connected to each other. So this is our Alberti bass, and this is the
way we're going to express the chords in the left hand. So then we got a G major starting on a B.
So before we continue going through this progression any further, let's just practice playing those
two chords in the left hand just to get the left hand into the groove, the classical groove. Okay, now let's add some C major notes into
the right hand for some improvisation. And for those of you who are newer to playing
this idiom and style of music, you're going to still find this coordination issues just
to get your hands working together. So we might just play this Alberti bass and
start just improvising playing around with the first five notes of a C major scale. You might hear a few more of them today. Okay, so that's a good starting point to get
your fingers warmed up. But obviously we want to move through some
more chords. So let's play this chord progression nice
and slowly. F major, C major, F major, C major, D minor,
G major. So I am playing the chords like this turning
turning them into an Alberti bass. Now the Alberti bass. Now without the pedal. Just doing the first line of this progression. Okay, let's make a melody up in the right
hand now. Of course, you can modify those chords in
the left hand. This is just a starting point. So what was I doing in the right hand? Well, what happens in melodic improvisation? It's no different to what happens in jazz
or in any style of music, classical music, is that a composer doesn't just write scales,
we don't just spend all day listening to scales. We tend to in repertoire see scales moved
around and played in different positions and starting on different notes inside the scale
to make either short motive's, melodies, sequences. So sequences where you play, let's say, a
series of three or four notes, and you just move that sequence up or down the keyboard. Next can be a useful way to build a phrase,
what you're looking to do when you're improvising against this left hand is to keep it simple. And use these little short motives and leave
gaps and phrases. Phrases are really important in classical
music. Classical music has a certain sense of symmetry
to its melody. Well, this is before the Romantic Period anyway,
it has a sense of symmetry to the melody, so that you have one melody, and then a second
melody that replies to that. So you could do something like this. So that's the first bar. Second bar, I use the same melody, I use the
same rhythm, but I modified the notes. Do the same thing in this bar. Now I could do something instead a little
bit more adventurous or maybe something a little bit more ornamented and moves a bit
faster. Now let's go to the second line. In the second line, I use chords that change
key and move into the dominant key - a very typical classical music idiom. And you hear this so often in Haydn and Mozart. I have got C major chord, then I go to a D
major chord, but with the C in the bass, moves to a G major chord with the B in the bass,
A minor with a C in the bass, G with the D in the bass, the D seven, and then the G major. And then the G seven. So now if I'm going to improvise on the second
bar, I'm slowly moving into the key of G major, as soon as this second chord, in fact, so
I'm going to replace all of my F naturals with F sharps. I don't just start playing the G major scale,
that sort of gives the game away, I slowly creep it into the music a bit like this. And now let's see the fingers. So it's quite fun, I'm starting to feel like
I'm improvising something like a piano sonata, which is really, really enjoyable. So the next step is, let's now move to another
key. So in classical music, the key changes are
very function driven, you know, moving to the dominant C major to G major. And now we're going to move to the relative
minor. And let's perhaps change the groove for the
relative minor. Let's change it to just some block chords. A minor, E Major, E seven over a G sharp,
A minor, D minor, G seven, C major, F major. I'll put in a B half diminished here. And then a B seven, then E suspended fourth,
to an E major. I'm using some more advanced chords here. But for those of you who understand what these
chords are, you can voice them in different ways as well. Don't have to voice it just the way I played
it. But even just by looking for your own voicings
with these lovely triad, clean harmonies is so useful for your piano improvisations and
functional piano skills. Here I'm putting the seventh, the bass, which
works quite well. So we're going to start with the first two
bars of this A minor section. I'm just going to start with the first five
notes of an A minor scale, I might move up to the sixth note as well because that is
a lovely semitone to play with as well. And I might just improvise between those first
two bars just to get started on something. So I'm going to hover between A minor and
E major chord here. That's a lovely classical phrase by the way. Think of something else, maybe another invention
around that chord progression. That was a more scale-like invention. Okay, now I'll improvise something to that
entire second part of the progression. Starting on the A minor. Chromaticism was almost a bit blues like,
almost felt like I was going to start doing this. I've obviously clearly been teaching too much
blues recently. So let's try that again that second phrase. Add a bit more tension by repeating those
suspended chords. D minor over the F here and then I go to the
G7. I'm going to improvise a little cadenza now. So what is a cadenza? A cadenza is often like a linking pattern
not only it's a big solo section in a piano concerto with the piano really gets to show
off, it's often just a linking passage that takes us back to the first phrase, so on that
G7, that final G7 we're going to improvise on a G7 chord with passing notes to create
a cadenza. And the great thing about a cadenza is you're
gifted with a sense of free rhythm. It's often many moments in cadenzas are unbarred. And there's a sense of colla voce to the rhythm,
which gives you a free expression of the rhythm. So let's move into the cadenza from those
last three bars there from the E major. Back to the beginning. So let's play the whole progression. Now I will improvise a coda to finish the
piece. So I hope today's video has given you some
really good tips to explore in this new horizon and please click the subscribe button because
I'm going to be putting more videos and training together on classical improvisation, because
we should restore this lost art, we need to bring it back to bring more pleasure, enjoyment,
and holistic, most importantly holistic understanding of music back into our training, which is
what we do at the London Contemporary School of Piano. So head on over to our website, contemporaryschoolofpiano.com.
and ask for the free classical music pack, which has these progressions written down
in a number of different keys. Just tell the staff of our team through the
email address on our website, that you've seen this video, and they'll often need one
or two days to get back to you. But they'll get back to you with this pack. And I look forward to speaking with you soon
on these topics. And enjoy your practice. Thank you very much. My improvised piano concerts come from no
preconception or plan at all. The music is there, I just have to trust it. And that's the hardest thing that I've had
to learn on this journey.
