How to compose Piano Improvisation? by Virtual Pianist Allegro Molto

"Piano Improvisation" is the real-time composition and performance of an piano piece. Virtual Pianist Allegro Molto will explain the two most important keys of piano improvisation: (1) enriching your repertoire through conscious training on a regular basis, and (2) outputting while keeping a bird's-eye view of the overall structure of the piece.

*The exact same content is available in video format. If you prefer the video format, please click here.

1. What is Piano Improvisation

This is the scene of playing Piano Impromptu "Shiosai" in my streaming. Focused on the concept of "Nostalgic," I play the music instinctively. Like this, Improvisation is a kind of artworks that we output immediately without the process of "Composition on Desk."

Today, I hope you will learn how to compose improvisation and it will help your future activities. 

2. Create "Deck" of Chord Transition

The perfection of improvisation depends on how impressively you continuously output. Especially, the selection of chords in accompaniment directly influences on fascination of your music. With many series of chord transitions you have aquired, I can say you have already learned 90% of the essences for improvisation. 

To get "Chord Transition," you make sure that you keep aware what chord you are playing at each moment. Playing again and again with focusing on how emotional each chord transition is enriches your "Chord Transition Deck" for piano improvisaion. The goal is just close to you.

very easy.

anyway...

You can output better accompaniments by satisfying "Chord Transition Deck." I also recommend you to enjoy counting "How many Emotional Cards you played from your Deck."

3. "Play Emotional Card"

How should we play the "Emotional Card" from the Chord Transition Deck? 

We should comprehensively plan the total structure to play the card appropriately. A good music has the most dramatic parts in the middle of music. For example, the "chorus" is comparable in JPOP, and the "development" is in Sonata (maybe). It is good to perform the most emotionally in the most dramatic parts. Therefore, we should rank the attractiveness of each card in our own mind in advance.

As for me, the chord transition including more chords is more attractive. For Example, than Am→C→Am→C, Am→C→E♭→F is more attractive. However, there are individual differences in the way to rank chord transitions. It is important to trust your own senses. Chord-transition feelings rely on individuals.

Also, it is important to repeat the parts we would like to emphasize. By repeating, we can strongly impress on the listeners that this is the part which we would like to perform the most dramatically.

In conclusion, the keys of improvisaion are paying attention to the whole structure, performing the best part in the middle, and repeating it to impress on the listeners. It may be a little difficult to pay attention to the whole structure with composing it. It may take some getting used to, but try your best!

4. Finally

I explained my own method of improvisation, but improvisation is free essentially. Thus, it is good to look for your own style without getting too caught up in this method. 

I mainly explained the accompaniment, but explaining the melody is not so necessary, as it is quite flexible. I think it is best to play it the way you would like to play it.

Thank you for reading! I hope you will learn something by this article! Have a good improv life!

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I am streaming "Piano Bar Molto" in which I am playing the piano improvisations with chatting ramdomly every noon/UTC in Twitch. Come visit us!

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