The 3 Levels of Improvising

okay so we're gonna start at level zero actually and I didn't want to count this as one of the levels because it's literally not improvisation at all and that is sheet music we all know you know what that is I'm reading a piece of music and playing exactly what it's written on the page it dictates the rhythm it dictate to the Harmony it dictates the chord voicings it dictates the melody anything about what you're playing is written down on the page that would be level zero there's no improvisation at all that's just reading sheet music let's step into the world of improvisation on the very very first level remind you this is just sort of like my own self organization of how I would explain this to somebody so I'm sure there's plenty of other ways for somebody to kind of explain what all this is and it may be completely different from this but so to me number one is I have the melody and I have the chords and the only part that's improvised is how I'm actually playing those chords right so if I if sony says 'if lat well if i'm just playing an e flat triad means okay but what can I do with that right I can play or I can spread it out maybe I add a note to it I'm gonna add nine voicing or something I don't know so there's all these other things just because it says 'if lat I get to then decide what I'm gonna do with that information and none of that has decided ahead of time so it's a level of improvisation here is a little bit of me playing a melody that's pre-written to a chord sequence that's pre-written but the actual way that I play the chords has not been decided at all and that is level one of improvisation [Music] okay so that brings us to level two of improvisation now we have the chord structure we're making up how we're voicing those chords but we're gonna toss out the melody and now we're gonna replace it with our own melody that we're coming up with in real time so at this point everything that I'm playing is improvised the only thing that is not is the form and the the harmonic structure of the tune so the chord progression basically I'm still playing a certain number of bars from beginning to end I'm still playing the same chords even if there's slight variations in there maybe I make a decision to you know to change a few of the chords here and there just add some different colors or whatever but I'm still using that pre written formula for how to play this tune it's just every component of how I execute it is all improvised this what I would call this level two and here's an example of that [Music] so that brings us to level three or what I would say the absolute purest form of improvisation now this is something that was very difficult for me to learn and that's kind of counterintuitive because you're like well it's all made up it's improvisation how what is there to learn you're just making everything up well that's in some ways true but that's really tough for us as musicians because we don't want to sound bad we don't want to we don't want to play things that don't make any sense or don't sound like anything it's not really fun your brain wants to stop you from just playing nonsense and most of the time that's a good thing except for the fact that if you really want to free yourself up from any of the confines of like a chord progression or you know just some sort of predetermined aspect of a song you have to let go of that desire to sound correct just be willing to sound bad that means literally placing your hands on the piano and just kind of going what is that what does this elicit what does this feel like whatever if I prefer to continue playing where do I go from here you know like [Music] like obviously that doesn't sound like anything but the development of this process as you practice in practice the practice you learn to start incorporating those elements of music that you do understand you know different chord voicings different movements different harmonic motions and I want to say chord progressions because it's never that it's never that's structured but it's just the idea of being willing to go anywhere right and it's not that you have to just place your hands on the keys and and just play random shapes but you want to take those maybe a random shape or a sound or even a single note and just kind of follow wherever it is that it's kind of it kind of just feels like it wants to go and that's gonna be informed by what you do know about chords and music theory and all that stuff and so all that stuff is okay to incorporate you know I don't think it takes away from the improvident or II said a word improv I don't know the improv taurine nature of what you're actually doing I don't think it takes away from that it's just utilizing the language that you know in order to better inform these decisions that you make take take conversation for example right so if you and I were having a back and forth conversation of course this isn't but if it was you would say something to me I would hear that I would interpret it and then I would respond with something that ideally pushed the conversation forward now what would I use to respond to that I don't know what you're gonna say you don't know what I'm gonna say but yet we both know the language that we're speaking whether it's English French German whatever we know the language so we're able to utilize that language to just kind of keep going in a direction that's all we're doing with this is we're just allowing it to keep going in a direction and we're utilizing our knowledge of the language to help that happen so here is me just sort of I'm I'm gonna call this free improvisation it's literally based on nothing I have no structure I I don't know any single chord that I'm gonna play I'm just gonna play something listen to it and just kind of allow it to push forward [Music] [Music] you [Music] and that's it that's the three levels of improvisation I hope that maybe introduces some concepts that maybe you have thought about before try this really seriously try it just allow yourself to play something and let let it be whatever it's gonna be and just follow it and it might sound bad at first but that is okay it is totally okay to sound like garbage that is a part of the learning process we got to get through that before you can start to speak fluent sentences right anyways that's it thanks for watching if you'd like to more videos like this I mean I do enjoy doing these types of videos they're a little different I guess you know the sketches and the and the memes and stuff but there are a lot of fun for me to do and if there's subjects that you'd like me to cover put them in the comments below because I'm happy to do it if it's something you guys would like to see thanks so much for watching please remember to subscribe and I will see you next [Music]

Channel: Charles Cornell

Views: 379,444

Keywords: Charles, Charles Cornell, Charles Cornell Studios, Studios, Cornell, Piano, Piano Covers, Piano guy, piano lesson, music, music theory, theory, theory lesson, music theory lesson, piano improv, jazz improv, improv, improvisation, jazz improvisation, how to play piano, how to improvise on piano, how to improvise, how to play jazz

Id: hc5oQ-EYhk0

Length: 11min 34sec (694 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 15 2020