Some Improvisation Lessons 
 

   As already said, composition and performance of the same piece of
                         music are  processes that usually take place in separate times.

     In improvisation these two processes live in the same time.

                To improvise you need to learn to compose very quickly, and to transfer
                         immediately on the guitar your musical ideas.

                        Let's start with the latter requirement.
 
 
 

             Here are some exercise to develop your "fingerboard  instinct"

  1A Play a note, say the C on the 3rd string. Imagine or sing another note,
                        or better, another pitch.
                        Try to determine to which note  that second pitch corresponds by
                        considering  the interval between  the first and the second note.
                        Play the second note and verify its pitch is the one you have imagined
                        or sang.
                        Go on this way.
 

   1B Play a note. Then sing or imagine a few notes continuation and try to play
                        it right.
                        You can do this with melodies by your invention as well as with famous ones.
 
 

 
Important suggestion.

  The guitar tuning is based on perfect 4th intervals, except for the 
  interval between the 2nd and the 3rd strings, that is tuned on a major 3rd.
  This  major 3rd interval correction is necessary to have all strings tuned in a 
  tonal way, avoiding flat tuned strings, and concluding the guitar tuning with a 
  sixth string tuned in E as the first one.
  Due to this asymmetrical tuning, the same chord on different strings requires
  different left hand positions: that's why guitar fingerboard is a so complicate 
  and intricate to master.
  Pianists, for example, can count on a keyboard in which every octave has the 
  same key disposition of the other ones.
  Our wonderful instrument, the guitar, doesn't present us with such regularity.
  So you must make this asymmetry become part of  your instinct. 
  You can also try my symmetric tuning by forth intervals, as E, B, G flat, D flat, 
  A flat, E flat, or F, C, G, D, A, E and enjoy symmetric left hand positions on 
  all the fingerboard.
  What you lose is the tonal compatibility between high and low strings. For 
  atonal  or contemporary languages this tune is fantastic. May turn out to be as 
  a guitar tuning of the future.

 

2   Play a musical phrase, a simple melody composed by you as well as a famous one.
                      Transpose it in another key.

                      Here is an advantage of the guitar fingerboard respect to a piano like keyboard:
                      if you don't use open strings, you can transpose a melodic line simply using
                      the same fingerings on a different fret position. Anyway you must not abuse of
                      this guitar resource.
                      Learn to conceive sounds not only as positions on the fingerboard but also as
                      notes.
                      So, if the first note of your melody is a G sharp on the 3rd string, and
                      you want to transpose it an octave higher, first you must think about the note
                      you are looking for, in this case the G one octave higher, considering all the
                      possible string-fret combinations in which you can play that note, then choose the
                      right combi according to the kind of tone you want to achieve, and finally play
                      the entire melody starting from that position.

                      It is of the greatest importance for you to be the more aware you can of the notes
                      you are playing. I want to insist about this point, because guitarists, even
                      some concert artists too, have usually the bad habit to play thinking only about
                      fingerings, and not about the notes.
                      I don't intend to say that having a mental vision of the physical movements
                      involved in the act of playing is wrong. On the contrary I think it is a very
                      good thing indeed.
                      I only point out that limiting your mental vision to the fingerings, ignoring
                      the notes you are actually playing, if very limiting while performing a
                      repertoire piece, is absolutely wrong while improvising.
 
 
 
 

             Small suggestion
                When you compose your first monadic lines, use a great variety of rhythms
                       figures. Insert triplets, fast scales, irregular groups and so on, to make
                       your musical inventions more interesting.
                       Play staccato, legato, rubato. Learn to give the music you are improvising an
                       instantaneous interpretation. You will find it very satisfying.

           And now let's start to put some harmony in our exercises.

 3     Take a simple melody, and sing it, trying to deduce its harmony from its notes.

                       First of all, you have to distinguish the notes that make part of a chord
                       from the passage notes.
                       Given all of you know Oh Susanna, let's try to play it in C.
                       The first question you have to ask yourself is: the first note of
                       the melody is the first, third, fifth or what else of the first chord.
                       Sing it and try to understand the harmonic position of that note in
                       the C chord
                       Singing it, you should feel that  note is the basis of the chord, you
                       should experience a sensation of stability in it. So you deduce it is
                       the basic note of the chord, the first note.
                       So, if you have decided to play Oh Susanna in C, the start note
                       is just C.

                       But, doing this means also to be able to identify the harmonic
                       functions of a melody, that is its chords.
                       So, given you want to harmonize a melody in C, you have to identify
                       the first chord, that doesn't necessary have to be C, and all the
                       followings ones.

                       I won't lie: getting this ability requires a lot of practice.
                       But the fundamental trick to achieve this harmonic ear is to
                       consider chords not only by their name, but also by their harmonic
                       degree. A minor and E major are in the key of A minor respectively
                       1st degree minor and 5th degree major, tonic and dominant, whereas the
                       1st degree minor and the 5th degree major represent an entire category
                       of chords.
                       So, considering harmonic functions, that is harmonic degrees,
                       give us the incommensurable advantage to have a way of analyzing
                       the harmony of a piece that doesn't depend on its key.
                       If you know the harmonic functions of a piece, you can play it in
                       the key you prefer. This is of enormous importance in improvisation.
                       Obviously, you have to remember at least to which chords  the main
                       harmonic functions in the usual guitar keys correspond.
                       (otherwise life would be really too simpler)
 
 

          Summing up, we can say to harmonize a melody you have to be able to:
 
 

      1    Identify the melody harmonic functions (tonic, dominant,
            subdominant and other harmonic degrees).

       2    Substitute them with the relate chords of the key you have chosen.

     3  Identify the position that the melody notes have in the corresponding
            chords.
 
 

                These points must be considered as musical areas in which
                   focusing your explorations.

                It is evident that the point 1 requires  a theoretical and practical knowledge of
                       harmony.

                       I think that Shoemberg famous Harmony Manual is one of the best even written
                       books to really understand how harmony works.

                       To practice harmony on the guitar, you can take an harmony texts, choose the
                       musical examples more suitable on the guitar, and play them.
                       Unfortunately it's almost impossible to find harmony books written for the guitar.

                   Regarding  point 3, you must learn to identify from an harmonic point of view,
                       the important notes of a melody, that is the notes that constitute the harmonic
                       structure of a piece.
                       Main notes usually are on the beats of  a measure. Since also the so called
                      "appoggiature" may fall on main beats, pay attention to them.

                       It is very useful to improvise pieces in which the melodic lines describe
                       completely or almost completely their harmony, like Bach Cello suites.
                       A chord arpeggiato is in fact a melodic line that describes an harmonic
                       structure.
 

                   What I said above is useful most of all when you play a known
                   melody.
                   Obviously when you improvise, it's you to decide the harmony,
                   the notes and so on.
                   But first af all, you have to acquire an harmonic sensibility, that is
                   a music instinct.

                   Anyway make also you own composition and improvisation
                   experiments!
 

                   If you find these exercises a little too free, consider that after all,
                   nothing is more free than improvisation.
 
 


                   Some considerations about the mental vision.

           I often speak about having a mental vision of  your playing, 
                 so you may wonder what I exactly mean with this term.
                 Well, all of us know that every physical experience is in fact the
                 result of a mediation between reality and our senses.
                 We can't have a direct experience of reality (this is reason of sorrow
                 for physicists, and of mystical speculations for philosophers).
                 We know the things of the world through our senses.
                 But we couldn't have any real experience of reality without a brain
                 capable of elaborating  data we receive from our sense organs.
                 True understanding of what surrounds us requires the capability
                 of identifying, recognizing, and therefore memorizing data.
                 In the first years of our life we formed  the mental structures
                 that now make us interpreting and discriminating the messages coming
                 from the outside world. These mental structures, that could be compared with
                 the software of a computer, allow us to forecast reality too.
                 And allow us to act. Every action involves a project, doesn't matter you are
                 aware of it or not. This is what I intend for mental vision.
                 When you are going to do something, your brain creates a virtual reconstruction
                 of your action and of its consequences, and the more accurate this project
                 is, the more probability your action has to be successful.
                 It goes like this when you struggle with a wild animal, when you play
                 tennis, and even when you play a musical instrument.
                 During our REM phases, that is when we have dreams while sleeping, 
                 this capability of our brain of simulating reality comes out dramatically in all 
                 its power. 
                 The more our brain has truly understood physical laws governing real life, 
                 the more it will be able to recreate reality in our oneiric activity.
                 You can have an idea of how much your mental vision of the act of playing
                 is precise, from the accuracy of the simulation of your playing while dreaming.
                 Given you sometimes have dreams in which you play, the fact you have vivid
                 representations of your playing, with all the physical sensations, auditive, tactile,
                 visual and so on of it, means you have a good mental vision of the process.
                 If otherwise in your dreams your musical performances are usually vague,
                 approximate, you probably don't have a strong mental vision of your playing.
                 If you find these improvisation lessons are a little too abstract, too discursive,
                 not the usual exercises, remember that to improvise you have most af all change
                 your mental attitude towards music, you have to take the wheel and
                 say: now it's me who drives the car. You have to dare, to be creative.
                 You have not only to go deeper inside the harmony and composition processes,
                 but also to get a deeper awareness of all the mental processes involved
                 in the act of playing.
                 Here you will find just some good advice to find your own way of improvising.

                 Have a good work.

 

 
 

                   This page will be regularly added with new material.
                   So time by time you can visit this site to see what's new.
 
 

          For your comments, suggestions, or simple questions about this page, please
                      e-mail at:   danimprv@tin.it
 
 

                                                    Daniele Russo 1999
 

                   HomePage
 
 
 
 
 
 
  1