January 27, 2026: Tuesday Upbeat

Teachers: Happy Tuesday!

Improvising 101

Many teachers and students feel they cannot, or do not know how to, or are afraid to try to improvise. Here are some suggestions to help break the ice. First, thoughts about how to reframe what improvising is or can be, and then, ideas for how to get started improvising.

Reframe

First, I suggest that every musician, every music teacher, and every music student has already done a lot of improvisation. If you’re shaking your head, ask yourself, “Have I ever played the ‘wrong note’ while practicing or performing, but kept playing afterward?” “Have I ever had a memory slip and recovered and somehow kept going?” “Have I ever learned/played the ‘wrong’ rhythm and then corrected it later?”

Everyone will say, Yes. And so, everyone has improvised! Every time you did something unintentional, and then recovered or kept going, you were improvising. To get better at improvising, to start, all you have to do is do those same things more intentionally!

Ideas for “Improv Beginners”

Here is a list of the most very basic ways to start improvising, for both yourself and your students. (My examples are piano-focused, but most can be modified/enhanced for any instrument including singing.)

1. On the piano, hold the pedal down and play only black keys. Go up and down the piano in different patterns. (Play pentatonic scales.) Make beautiful ambient music.

2. Add a plagal cadence to any song, experimenting with different ways to do it. Think of a plagal cadence as a IV-I chord progression, or a melodic “Fa-Mi.” So, let’s say your song ends on C Major. After the song is completed, add an F Major chord, and then C Major again. Or simply play F-E, perhaps with a C in the bass each time. Once this is learned, experiment with the myriad ways (octaves, note combinations, harmonies, passing tones, etc.) that you could play this improvised cadence. (Choral/church musicians might call this an “Amen cadence.”)

3. Add repeated notes, passing tones (neighbor notes), or mordents to any melody. So let’s say you are playing Three Blind Mice, and the first three notes are E-D-C. You could improvise on the melody by playing one or more variations such as these:
   
   E-E-D-D-C
   E-D-E-D-C
   E-F-E-D-D-C
   E-D-C-C-B-C
   E-F-E-D-E-D-C
   
   And any of a hundred other variations!

4. Change the rhythm. For example, play Silent Night in 4 instead of in 3. Or take a straight rhythm and swing it.

5. How about some atonal/bitonal/avant-garde improv? Play the left hand in the original key but play the right hand a half step higher! (Transposing is a cousin of improvising.)

6. Play a song much slower than intended, and add extra measures of silence, or repeated notes, or hold out notes for a long time. Turn eighth notes into quarter notes. Add exaggerated fermatas, rubato, allargando, and more.

7. Play a melody replacing the bass notes with one single repeated note, like a drone or ostinato.

8. Create scary music. Play only very low notes and very high notes. Use lots of dynamics, articulations, pedal, staccato, etc. Tell your student to create the soundtrack for a scary movie. Make it up as you go along. Set a timer for 30 seconds and see if you/they can keep going for that whole period of time.

I bet the music for some scary movies was actually created that way!

1. Play from lead sheets or charts. Intermediate and advanced players can improvise the chords, bass line, and harmonies, either separately, or while also playing the melody, or while singing.

These and other activities will help you and your students get started improvising. An early goal of improvisation is to let go of the fear! If we are afraid to sound “bad” it makes it harder to improvise. So, “sound bad” on purpose! Get used to that and let it not matter. Tell students every time they play a “wrong” note that you loved their improvisation! (Make that part of your teaching and learning strategies.)

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Have a magical Tuesday, a musical week, and enjoy happy, healthy and tension-free teaching and learning with your students.

Thank you,

Dennis Frayne

"Dr. Dennis"
Laguna Niguel School of Music
Dennis Frayne Music Studios
30110 Crown Valley Pkwy, Suites 105/107/108
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
(949) 844-9051 (office cell)
(949) 468-8040 (personal cell)

www.lagunaniguelschoolofmusic.com

dfrayne@dennisfrayne.com

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