How to master harmony with spiral learning - Improvise for Real

[@mireiaclua]

Thank you for watching this video! Have you experienced spiral learning in music or in any other field? I would love to hear your thoughts about the way of studying harmony I presented in this video. And you know that if you have any doubts or questions, we will be happy to help. ;) - Mireia

[@drummascooterman]

Random thought, Are you the one who is singing in Sing the Numbers?

[@mireiaclua]

Walls of Dis: Yes I am. What a great ear you have!! 🙂

[@robertjospe9181]

Excellent!

[@antondiffering4727]

@@mireiaclua you sing beautifully. Nobody does it better.

[@tehenga38nz]

What I like about the IFR system is the labelling of chords by the parent scale. I had tried this before only as an exercise but mostly only used the scale tones as a way of understanding what kind of chord progression was happening, e.g I, IV, V progression. Otherwise I would sometimes take a transcribed solo and sing the notes labelling and singing them from the parent scale while playing the chords underneath and other times labelling them by calling whatever chord root was being played underneath as 1. It makes more sense to me to do as per IFR method and keep the labelling related to the parent scale even if for instance you happen to be in a minor key. That makes it the 6 chord environment. Also now that I am working through the jazz standards material it makes sense to label the secondary dominant chords in the same way as it helps explain why the extensions of the 7th chord are altered in some cases e.g. 3dom 7 environment has a b9 &b13 from the parent scale. I also like the fact that each environment is studied on it's own at first because too often methods or teachers will have learners try to solo over chord progressions right off the bat which is a little bit like trying to run before you can walk.

[@ImprovisadeVerdad]

Fantastic observations! I love that you picked up on the fact that chord alterations like b9 and b13 are already contained in the 3D harmonic environment. This is one of many ways that music looks so much more complicated on paper than it really is. Lead sheets don't assume that you understand anything about harmony or the key of the music, so they need to load all of that information into each chord symbol. But most of the time these fancy looking chord alterations are just trying to steer you back to the original key of the music. An even more important benefit of the tonal point of view is that you can see the entire flow of the harmony at once. So now you don't have to "move your note 1" every time there is a new chord or a new chord progression. It's this "bird's eye view" of the harmonic flow that enables us to connect with our musical imagination, because the melodies we imagine aren't contained in little silos the way many people study chords. Thank you for your wonderful comment and insights! - David

[@tehenga38nz]

@@ImprovisadeVerdad A problem is that I have been in those silos so long that I sometimes find myself thinking or singing the old way but the more I do it the easier it gets.

[@passage2enBleu]

I'm glad your ad popped up. Good to find someone who explains improv from a holistic view. This is the second video of yours I've watched, after melody paths. I'm new to music and loving the discovery. Improv is my choice road to explore. Wondering if you could do a video on creating tension, and resolving. Blessings.

[@ImproviseForReal]

Thanks for your kind words and for the great suggestion, Ken! We'll definitely add a video on tension and release to our next set of video lessons.

[@antondiffering4727]

Nobody has explained more convincing than you Lady.

[@danielhornbeck6588]

Yes, everything presented here, 100%

[@tehenga38nz]

I really like the logic behind the IFR system. This is a great way to study music and is also a lot of fun.

[@ImproviseForReal]

Thank you so much! We love studying music this way and it's also fun for us to share it. Please let us know whenever you have questions or if we can help you in any way. Thanks for watching! - David

[@tehenga38nz]

@@ImproviseForReal I have some of your material and I am slowly working through each exercise of your system.

[@williaminavanbottle9297]

Im 3 years old. Please explain what the circled numbers stand for....And the vertical positions of such. Remember, I am 3 years old... And have no experience in the language of music... On paper. Thank you.

[@ImproviseForReal]

Okay, you're on! I don't know if this explanation would truly serve a 3-year-old, but I will definitely try to answer you in the simplest way I know how. I would present it in three statements: - Almost all popular songs are made from just the seven notes of the major scale. These are the numbers you see in the video. - Melodies make very free use of all seven notes of the scale all the time. - Chords are made by playing only some of the notes while leaving other notes out. The circles in the video are these chord notes. Does that help?

[@DougDopplerMusic]

Your content is exceptionally well thought out and executed. GREAT approach!!!

[@ImproviseForReal]

Thank you, Doug!

[@daaronk]

me gusto mucho el approach… y tras comprarme vuestro libro creo ke puede ser un buen camino para compaginarlo.. gracias … donde podría preguntaros cosas sobre el libro?

[@ImproviseForReal]

Hola daaronk, me alegra que te haya gustado el enfoque del vídeo, espero que te sirva junto con el método. También tenemos un canal con vídeos en español: KZbin.com/c/ImprovisadeVerdad. Para preguntar cosas sobre el método puedes escribirnos por email: [e-mail]. Pero si tienes una duda acerca de algo que explicamos en un vídeo, también puedes preguntarlo aquí en los comentarios. ¡Disfruta del método! - Mireia

[@daaronk]

@@ImproviseForReal muchas gracias .. os escribiré cuando avance con el libro... saludos

[@TechTins_Projects]

Why do you name the 5 chord as 5D ?? (love this stuff! Wish I had found this a long time ago)

[@ImproviseForReal]

Hi Tech Tins, welcome to the IFR community! We wish you had found us a long time ago too! :-) For now, you don't need to worry about that symbol "D" in the 5D chord. It means "dominant", so we include that to remind us that the 5 chord is a dominant chord. But when we're talking, you'll often hear us calling it simply "the five chord" because we're just talking about the chord that naturally comes from the major scale. The notes 5, 7, 2 and 4 naturally form a dominant chord, so we can use the terms "5D", "five dominant" and "the five chord" interchangeably. But in our writing, we will almost always write this as "5D". The reason for this is that later on in the method you'll begin altering these chord shapes to create all of the exotic sounds of modern harmony. So we need a way to specify the chord shape of each chord we're talking about. And so even in our more elementary video tutorials where we haven't yet reached this concept, we still write the five chord as "5D" just so that these written notes are consistent with the way you'll learn to call this chord in the future. I hope that doesn't sound confusing. All of this is explained in the book "Improvise for Real" in the chapters leading up to Exercise 4: Mixed Harmony. But the most important message is that right now you don't even have to worry about these symbols because our first project is just to master basic tonal harmony, which is everything that we can create with just the seven notes and seven chords of the major scale. While we're just working with these diatonic chords, you can just think of them very simply as the "one chord", the "two chord", etc., and you don't even have to think about their chord shapes yet. I hope this helps. Welcome to our community and don't hesitate to post any other questions you have. Thanks and happy jamming! - David

[@Mofidshima]

Thank you! Love your videos! 👌🏼🙏🌷

[@ImproviseForReal]

Thank you Mofid!

[@byronhoagland7932]

God, you guys are sooo good! So many elements of your approach resonate with me. Guess I'm a Music Philosopher. Certainly am an improvisor and composer. Cheers IFR Squad!

[@ImproviseForReal]

Thank you, Byron!

[@danielsheltraw8773]

Any IFR instructors in San Francisco?

[@ImproviseForReal]

Hi Daniel, thanks for asking! I'm sure there are music teachers in the San Francisco area who use IFR in their teaching. But we don't have a team of instructors throughout the world. We just create the teaching content and practice tools. So the best thing to do would be to search locally, maybe with a Reddit post or a Craig's List ad? And if you're open to doing lessons via Zoom, that opens things up tremendously. For that we really could get you in touch with someone that we could recommend. If that would be interesting to you, please send a note to [e-mail] with more information about your musical goals and anything specific you would like an IFR coach to help you with. Thanks Daniel! David

[@忘言-m6y]

Such good viedio ！very helpful ！ thank you very much

[@ImproviseForReal]

Thank you!

[@mingosutu]

Usted es Espanola, no? Nice videos, thanks

[@ImproviseForReal]

Hi Mangosuthu, I am not Spanish. But I am glad you like my videos! Best, Mireia.

[@mingosutu]

@@ImproviseForReal Thanks. Mireia, este es un nombre Catalan!! O me equivoco? jaja.

[@ImproviseForReal]

Yes, it's a catalan name. I am from Andorra. 😊

[@mingosutu]

@@ImproviseForReal Ok gracias por la informacion. Por el acento yo pense que usted era Hispano-hablante. Gracias nuevamente por los videos.

[@daaronk]

hola, ke tal un video de chromatic harmony? me encantaría ver como lo enfocas.. saludos!

[@ImproviseForReal]

Hola daaronk, thanks for the suggestion! We'll definitely be doing videos on more advanced concepts soon. Do you know about our Spanish channel? It's a new channel but going forward our plan is to publish every video in both languages. Since you wrote your comment in Spanish, you should subscribe to our Spanish channel too! Here's the link: kzbin.info Saludos! David

[@daaronk]

@@ImproviseForReal gracias, me compre vuestro libro y me gusto el enfoque...los videos ayudan a complementar... saludos D

[@ivanmectin9106]

she's so pretty :)