Piano Improvisation

Piano improvisation is playing with music – playing in the true sense of the word. It is a game: set yourself some rules and be as creative as possible within that framework of restrictions. This book is a guide on how to improvise. It contains some exercises to get started and appendices with the most important information about keys, scales, chords, harmony, melody, and rhythm to help you. The main part of the book consists of 21 examples: a short description, a recipe for an improvisation, an example chord progression, suggestions on how to further expand on the recipe, and a short piece in music notation illustrating the basic idea. You may want to play each piece as written but hopefully you will explore variations and add in your own ingredients, ideas, and flavors so that it becomes your very own music.