Posted by Danny on 11-Mar-09 12:24 Comments (3)

How to Compose and Improvise - Part 1

How to Compose and Improvise - Part 1 - How to Compose and Improvise - Part 2

How to Compose and Improvise - Part 3  - How to Compose and Improvise - Part 4

How to Compose and Improvise - Part 5 (Members Only)

 Hello, I'm John Montgomery from Softplanetgroup.com. Today we're going to be looking at composing with improvisation. We're going to build a composition using 3 chords and develop it into quite a sophisticated composition.

Now the 3 chords I'm going to use are F, A minor and G. Let's transfer these chords to the left hand as an accompaniment. Now you can hear that that's quite a muddy sound and you want to open that chord up Now we could open it up with an arpeggio octave as such, but to get the best sound, the best position for these chords i'm going to use the tenth (10th). Quite a big stretch but the sound is just so superior - listen to this.

So, using the thumb, travel up to the third (3rd) of the chord giving us in total a tenth chord.  So, our original 3 chords of F, A Minor and G - there they are.

Let's now put that accompaniment into action rythmically to see how it's going to sound and also at the end of the chord structure here i'm going to add an additional little tail, if you like, of 4 notes. And that will round it off, and that little additional part of the chord structure will add into our melody and give us a little bit of improvisation idea to add to the right-hand.

So, here we are with our 3 chords and the notes I'm going to add at the end of it. the thumb will have to play all of them. We have a pleasant sequence now of 3 chords - F, A minor and G and accompaniment with that little motif at the end.