I’ve been reading a lot about improvisation (non-jazz, particularly) and creativity in the piano lesson lately, as I’ve been working on a paper for my Into to Music Research class for college. It’s interesting to me how today there seems to be a trend for exact, literal performances of composers’ works. It was not always this way; in the Romantic Era, pianists would freely change composer’s works when they performed them in concert. They would often be completely unrecognizable from the original! But that was what the audience members came to hear: that pianist’s version of Beethoven, Bach, or whatever. Continue reading “Creativity in the Piano Lesson | Part 1 of the series”
Tag: improvisation
Making Time for Improvisation
In piano lessons today, improvisation is often a subject that often “goes out the window” because it is deemed to be less important or secondary to other skills. It had not always been this way; improvisation used to be a expected skill for any accomplished keyboardist during the Baroque through Romantic eras. Interestingly enough, it seems that today, the role of the pianist has evolved into the role of reproducing the works of other composers, rather than being a pianist-composer. Teaching improvisation in the lesson can be an incredibly useful tool, as well as serve as a creative outlet for the student. How do we, as piano teachers, find or make time to teach students how to improvise at the piano? Continue reading “Making Time for Improvisation”