Learn to Improvise

Have you ever wanted to improvise on the piano? Or maybe another instrument? Being able to play what you hear is a skill that anyone can fine-tune, it allows you to improvise at a high level. Take any jazz musician like Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, or Oscar Peterson. If you listen to their music, you can that they have a rich musical vocabulary. This is because they’ve internalized musical lines, phrases, and concepts and uniquely used them. In other words, whenever they heard something they liked, they practiced it until it became second nature. This allowed them to develop their sound and play freely. Ok, but what does this have to do with learning to play by ear? Let’s dive into this process and discover what it means to play by ear and how to do so like the masters.

Where to Start

If you want to play by hear there are a few things you need to do. You need to be able to hear (internally) musical phrases. For instance, many people hear thoughts in their minds. They aren’t using their ears to hear them, but are rather sensing them internally. If you can start turning those thoughts into musical thoughts, you’re well on your way to becoming a masterful improviser. To strengthen this ability, you need to practice singing melodies in your mind. With some practice, you’ll eventually be able to clearly hear musical ideas in your mind.

The next thing you’ll need to do is build your musical vocabulary. This is a lot like learning to speak another language. You’ll need to learn proper syntax to be able to improvise well, just like you would need proper grammar to speak coherently. We’ll dive deeper into the specifics of this syntax in another blog! The best way to start building this syntax is to listen to your favorite music and copy it. This is called transcription and is one of the fastest ways to learn to improvise.

Transcription

If you can clearly hear melodies in your mind and continue to add melodies by transcribing, the last thing you’d have to do is transfer them to your instrument. Although this is easier said than done, it’s achievable by anyone. For instance, when I was around 10, my mother bought me a keyboard for my birthday. I didn’t know how to play any songs or read sheet music, but I could hear melodies in my mind. Mary Had a Little Lamb was one of my favorites. So, I slowly began to pluck the keys until each note matched what I heard in my mind. This is still the strategy that I use today, I’m just faster now! We will discuss how to do this effectively in a later blog.

Conclusion

You will be able to play by ear if you implement these concepts. It takes time to do but Keyboppz is here to teach you how to do it faster. We have taken the hours to learn these concepts and will provide you with resources to do the same. So, if you want to play by ear, you’ll need to hear melodies in your mind and translate them to your instrument. Do this enough times and you’ll be able to improvise freely and masterfully. We have only scratched the surface when it comes to improvising, stay tuned and we’ll take a deep dive through various concepts to help you improve quickly!