Today, I’m at the Ohio Music Teachers Association conference (affiliated with MTNA) all day! Yes, in case you are wondering, I will be posting notes from the sessions I attend later this week. :)
But for now, I wanted to share a quick video of a black key improvisation from a recent piano lesson with one of my new students. This is only the third time we’ve tried an improvisation together, and each time I’ve noticed that Andelus instinctively creates a motif or theme that she uses throughout the improvisation, which is great because it creates a natural sense of unity for the composition! (Great job, Andelus!)
For this improvisation, the only discussion beforehand was “You may play any of the black keys,” and “Let’s make a happy, upbeat improvisation!” Enjoy!!
I have quite a few previous posts about improvisation….here’s a few to get you started if you are interested in reading more.
- Making Time for Improvisation – includes a description of the LH bass pattern I am using in the video above.
- Creativity in the Piano Lesson (Part 1) — a series of posts that discusses some of the discoveries I made while researching a writing a paper for a graduate level course last year.
- Improvisation Yields Creativity and Musical Understanding — a discussion of the benefits of improvisation which I saw in a specific student of mine about a year ago.
5 Comments
aww, it was adorable. I sometimes wonder if it’s really fair that people like you and me get paid so well to do THIS kind of stuff every day. :)
It was so simple yet pretty and I could tell she was really thinking hard about ways to ‘change up’ her little motif
I need to do this more with my students -- just got a duet piano bench last week so now I have a perfect excuse!
Thanks for the post.
Agreed — we have the best jobs in the world!
lol, so you would think, yes?
I was just about to send you a private email that sort of relates to your answer -- Here it comes.
I tried this today, but with an added twist. I had rhythm cards and I played the rhythm on the black keys in the bass clef and then the student followed with the same rhythm in the treble clef. I made sure to explain that it was like a conversation. I was asking the musical question and the student was giving the answer. Then we played the same rhythm together and improvised on the theme. I did it with 2 different students and both loved it. I liked that we were working on rhythms and improvisation at the same time.
What a great idea, Anna! I have done Q&A improvisation before, but not by specifically copying each other’s rhythms. I will have to try this sometime!