How to Learn to Improvise Music

Becoming skilled at improvisation on any musical instrument takes serious practice. There are, however, several things you can do that will improve your improvisational abilities.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A musical instrument
• Dedication
• A love of music

1. Stop Reading. Becoming a good music reader is one of the most important skills a musician can acquire, but when it comes to improvisation, a dependence on other peoples writing is a serious roadblock. Instead of reading, focus on learning about the chords and theory that holds the music together. Over time, you will come to pick up on the connections between chords in a way that cannot happen if you are focusing on reading given notes.

2. Learn your scales. Improvisation requires a deeper understanding of musical theory than playing written music. Learn every major and minor scale front to back, blues scales in every key, and learn as much about chord theory as possible.

3. Don't think too much. Over-saturating your brain with too many chords at first will leave you feeling lost and confused. Instead, pick a simple, well established chord progression (ex: I, vi, IV, V ) in a particular key, and play it over and over hundreds of times in every position you can think of on your instrument - preferably with a metronome. You WILL get bored, and you WILL find yourself adding embellishments. After mastering a single chord progression, you will find that each new chord progression you take on is easier to pick up than the last.

4. The show must go on. Just like learning to read music, learning to improvise requires that you never go back and correct what you have played, because you will LEARN to stop, and your music will lose continuity. Errors are an important part of improvisation, because they will open your mind to new possibilities. Remember, as long as the chords keep going, most people will not know the difference, so allow yourself to make errors, and "miss" notes without ever missing a beat in your chord progression.

5. Keep it simple. Never forget that a good musician can make silence say as much as notes. Space between notes is the key to keeping a laid-back feel - especially at the beginning and middle of a jazz solo. To gain momentum and keep people interested, it's a good idea to slowly progress from lower, slower, softer melodies to higher, faster, louder ones. Nobody wants to listen to monotony, so ALWAYS make the music change in dynamics from one section to the next. Improvising dynamics will elevate your game beyond 99% of the competition.

6. Don't be afraid to fail. Failure is a huge step toward success, and luckily, when it comes to music, you can hide most of your failures from the world. Everyone improvises badly for weeks or months before they improvise well, so do it in the comfort of your own home, or a practice room until you are somewhat confident that you can "hang" in a more difficult setting. Above all, don't forget that your audience will likely be more forgiving than you think.

7. Two heads are better than one. Never underestimate the power of collaboration. This is probably the most important part of becoming a serious improviser. No matter how good you are, you can't think up everything by yourself. Play along with your favorite recordings, jam with friends, join a band - do everything you can to learn from other musicians. You will find that some of your most intricate, and beautiful work comes in response to what someone else just played.

8. Be Persistent. Nothing worth doing is easy so keep trying. The pay off is well worth it.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't read music - focus on learning musical theory.
• Stick with a simple chord progression, in a particular key at first.
• Eventually, play your chord progression in every key.
• Be persistent.
• Collaborate with others.
• It is very important to note that learning to improvise without first gaining a strong ability to read music can make it more difficult to learn to read later.