Ten Questions on Improvisation

[@chrisdurhammusicchannel]

Excellent video. I play more jazz than classical. Glad you mentioned learning the repertoire. You wouldn't believe how many students learn a little bit of one jazz tune and they expect to be able to improvise at Oscar Peterson levels the first time they attempt to improvise! Learn the theory, learn the "licks," but more importantly, learn about a million songs so you have something for your imagination to draw from!!!

[@PlayBetterJazz]

As a Classical pianist of 12 years who turned to Jazz for the last 15 years, I have been studying RO, Partimenti and Composition for the last 6 months, it is amazing and really ties everything together, it is such a shame it's not in piano education today, but as a teacher I do try to employ basic composition and improvisation to my students who are not Jazz focused. Thank you for bringing this subject to light to many pianists who may not be aware of the significance. I hope you can show some demonstration videos of improvising in this way in the near future! Great video :)

[@sallyjohansson6045]

I enjoy your teaching videos. I am an organist and use the rule of octave (RO: creating the right harmony for every note of the octave) as a guide to required frequent improvisations. The organ is super satisfying to create improvisations. There's the French way to improvise, the German way, the American way and then the way I can and like to improvise, adapting the speed and rhythm to my own abilities. I take to heart your thought: lacking an idea for an improvisation? then start with the R.O! Thanks for encouraging all keyboardists to create their own music.

[@TheTmackey]

What timing! I’m into your ToneBase courses and working on RO. Generally this is way beyond me but still, I’m quite taken with it. Thanks for a great video!

[@uhoh007]

I'm beginning to think we should start learning to sing in the hexachords the day we start learning the RO. I searched Amazon for "Guidonian glove".....nothing. Seriously? In 2023? Love the aside on Hanon....what a dagger!

[@NikhilHoganShow]

Wonderful video!

[@backtoschool1611]

Very useful! Thank you for posting!

[@wandamusictube]

Thank you for his video and all your others. I first found you during pandemic.

[@Marisha_Piano]

Hello, my dear friend! Thanks for sharing this wonderful video! Very nice! Always be healthy and happy!

[@WoodyGamesUK]

Musical notation has nothing to do with music theory (understanding of harmony). So the question about blind musicians is irrelevant, they can study music theory in the same way as they can study mathematics or anything (with reading and writing using braille). Musical notation certainly is an efficient way to help communicate concept of music theory, but it isn't the substance. And what you say about some "very talented" blind people who may not have had this music training, but understand harmony nonetheless with their own system/framework, it really can apply to anyone (not just blind). I agree that having some understanding of music theory is very much needed, it is often what makes what we recognise as "genius". But it can come in many forms, it can be academic, it can be transmitted informally, it can be a self-learning process too (whether it conscious or not). At the end it amounts to having a frameworks, some rules, that you can decide to follow or break (but you are aware of what you're doing).

[@man0sticks]

Suppose I want to learn the RO in say, four keys to start with. Is there a book or study guide I could use? How do your students study the RO on their own during the summer? What materials or study guide do you give them?

[@km6206]

I disagree with some of the answers for 'What background is required?' I think it should be possible to learn most of the needed knowledge without learning visually. If you completely remove all the extra stuff needed to read music, then your audiation will probably need improved exponentially. Of course, this is not practical for classical musicians who need to work today, but I think it would lead to better musicianship. This idea of mine is, of course, taking a page from the traditional jazz world -- they could obviously understand complex harmony and rhythms without using written symbolization. Also, since there is this language metaphor being used in this video, here's.a fun fact: out of the 7,000 languages in the world, most do not have writing systems used to convert them to a visual representation.

[@TheBabelCorner]

很真实

[@abelgershfeld]

Could you reccomend a good book or course to thourghouly learn music theory? I have done the alfred's theory essentails but I feel like im lacking in knowledge.

[@trevorguy63]

Where do you learn the rule of the octave?

[@cedarvillemusic]

www.improvplanet.johnmortensen.com

[@quentinmassonnat5323]

Hi! Since you are an improv expert I was curious what do you think about the Koln concert by keith jarret?

[@cedarvillemusic]

I have listened to it countless times and studied it carefully. Köln is among the most important post-bop jazz recordings of the late 20th century.

[@prematureoptimism7125]

Very informative and honest. . . And yet somewhat disheartening. 🎶 😔 🎶

[@benny25410]

5:37 it's almost like we are trying to catch up to the construction/musicianship like those composers had

[@robertlotter8726]

One additional reason, improvisation has been forgotten in the 20th century, is that modern music can not be improviced. No one ever, not even the composers themselves, have improviced in the style of Mahler, Berg, Webern or Schönberg. Was Debussy a good improviser? I don't think so. Why is that? Since the leading figures where void of this skill, it was disregarded as unimportant.

[@julienpainot8862]

Yes it’s true. Although one can ask: which came first?in other words, did the leading figures become leading because improvisation has been forgotten or did the we forget improvisation because the leading figures couldn’t do it?

[@katherinespencer3806]

Actually, Debussy was an amazing improviser.

[@andrewhicks8340]

Messian was also a great improviser. So far as I know, he did not improvise in the extreme serialism in which he wrote for some years, but he did improvise in the manner of his book "Technique of my musical language," as well as in other styles.

[@zachmandernach6650]

Debussy was an excellent improviser.

[@NichtWunderkind]

Debussy learned through partimenti of course he could improvise

[@superblondeDotOrg]

14:00 it takes even longer than normal because of having to un-learn all the misinformation taught by modern music methods or jazz. Improv of guitar today is nearly always geometric, in finger patterns, no mental thought or musicology knowledge. With just one week of exercises on finger patterns, it is possible to improvise on guitar, and likely that ease becomes the biggest weakness.