As a classically-trained violinist, I didn’t learn improvisation at all until just a few years ago when I decided to teach myself. Improv opened up a whole new world of music making to me; I learned that I’m capable of creating my own music, not just re-creating someone else’s. Today I believe that improv is a crucial skill for any music student to learn, no matter what instrument they play or what type of ensemble they’re in. Improvisation helps students understand the theory behind the music they play and gives them the skills to solo, accompany, and compose all different types of music. If they can improv, they can continue to make music – their own music – for the rest of their lives.
I’ve been including some sort of improv instruction in my ensemble classes for several years now. We just do it for 5 or 10 minutes once or twice a week as part of our warmups for the day. As someone who never formally learned how to improvise, it’s been a steep learning curve with a lot of trial and error along the way, but I’ve come up with a system that gets the students improvising at some level before they leave my class. If you’re interested in teaching your students to improvise, I hope some of these steps and activities might be helpful to you.
Follow the Leader
Before we ever try improvising, I have the students practice playing things by ear. Improvising well means that you can hear what you want to play in your head first, then you can actually transfer that to your instrument. At the beginning, they may not know what to play, but if I can help them play what I play by ear, we’re one step closer to them audiating and then playing it.
We put on a backing track in whatever style I want them to get used to, then I play short little motives or riffs and have them play it back. I usually keep it to just one or two measures. It’s not just notes and rhythms; I also try to incorporate some aspects of the style, whether that’s slides and ornaments, different bowings, the blues scale, etc.
After doing that for a few days, I have the students come up with a one-measure pattern on their instrument within strict guidelines. I usually tell them their pattern has to be on a certain string and use a certain finger pattern, although you could also include a specific rhythm, bowing, or ornament. I limit the options so everyone can be successful, then I have them play their pattern for the class and everyone else plays it back. Because it’s so short and follows strict guidelines, the students don’t know they’re already improvising! I can also use this activity to assess other aspects of their playing, like if they know how to play a certain finger pattern or do a certain bowing.
One-Note Improvisation
Once the students have some experience with playing by ear, we start learning real improvisation – but still with a lot of restrictions. We do one-note improvisations. I start by explaining that we are going to improvise with just one note, then I ask them which note we should use. This is a great opportunity to explain the concept of tonic and scale degrees, because we’re only going to use tonic for this exercise. I start by playing a backing track and demonstrating a one-note improv for eight measures or so, then we talk about how you can make one note interesting. We discuss how I used different rhythms, articulations, bowings, and dynamics to create an interesting solo with only one note. Then I let the backing track run and have them experiment on their own. (Note: I only teach orchestra and guitar, so the volume usually doesn’t get out of control.)
Once they’ve had a minute or two to experiment, I have a few students play their improvised solos for the class, just for about 4 measures or so. We talk about what each student did well to add interest to their solo. There are no wrong answers! There’s no reason to talk about what they did wrong, because nothing is wrong here. You’re trying to build their confidence and make this a safe environment to experiment.
One thing that I’ve noticed after doing this with lots of different classes and students is that most of them don’t use enough space or silence in their solos. Most students play notes nonstop, when they could have a much more effective solo if they just stopped playing sometimes and gave themselves room to breathe.
Two-Note Improvisation
The next step we do is very similar to one-note improvisation, but this time we use two notes. Again, I’ll ask the students if we can only use two notes, which two notes should we use? This is another great opportunity to talk briefly about music theory and scale degrees. With one-note improv, we used tonic because it’s the most important scale degree. Now we’re going to add the fifth scale degree, or the dominant because it’s the second most important scale degree. Most of the music we listen to travels from tonic to dominant and back again. With a two-note improv, students can start experimenting with when it feels right to play the tonic versus the dominant. They can start to listen to the chord progressions of the backing track and match what they play to what they hear.
We follow the same process as the one-note improvisations, and I try to reinforce the same concepts. Make it musical! Leave space. Use articulations and dynamics to make it interesting. Again, I’ll give everyone time to experiment on their own, then listen to a few students solo for the class so we can talk about what they did well.
Using the Major Scale
The next step is to introduce the whole major scale and let them experiment with that. Before letting them loose with an entire scale, we go back to doing some Follow the Leader where I play something and they play it back. We also talk about emphasizing the tonic and dominant. When in doubt, make it simple! You can always just go back to one of those two notes. Just like before, we play a backing track and take some time to experiment.
Question and Answer Phrases
At this point, my students are ready to start building more melodic ideas instead of just random notes. We start by talking about question and answer phrases. A question phrase is a melodic idea that doesn’t end on tonic. It can end on any other note besides tonic. An answer phrase will always end on tonic.
To practice this, I start by playing them some short question and answer phrases myself, then asking them if it’s a question or answer phrase. After a few of those, then I’ll play a question phrase for one or two measures and they all respond at the same time with some sort of answer phrase for the same length. Most of it will be chaos, but they should all end their phrase on tonic, so at least the last note is together. Then we switch, and I have them play a question phrase while I play an answer phrase.
We discuss how we can make the question and answer phrases match, much like you would if you were having a conversation with someone. You can make them match by using similar rhythm and note patterns, or similar articulations and bowings. I pair up the students and have them take turns playing question and answer phrases to each other.
Building a Walking Bass
It’s time to talk about harmonies! I want my students to understand harmonic progressions and what notes will sound good with what harmonies, so we do that by learning to play a simple walking bass. A lot of YouTube backing tracks will include the chords of the harmonic progression, so we start with that. We just play the root of each chord along with the backing track. Once they are comfortable with that, then we add the fifth of each chord and play root – fifth – root – fifth along with the backing track. Once they can do that, we add the third of the chord, so now we’re playing the whole triad arpeggio along with the backing track. We experiment with different arpeggio patterns and talk about how a walking bass line is just different combinations of those notes. We don’t really go any further than that unless I have a class that is really excited about learning how to build a walking bass.
Introducing the Pentatonic Scale
I love the pentatonic scale for improv. Everything sounds good, no matter what! I’m honestly flabbergasted that no one ever taught me about the pentatonic scale and how to use it, because it’s so much fun! My students now know about scale degrees, so introducing the major pentatonic scale is super easy. We play a normal major scale, then we take out the 4th and 7th scale degrees. Voila! We’ve got it.
To get that new scale under their fingers, we turn on a backing track and just play that scale up and down several times. Then I’ll demonstrate an improvised solo using the pentatonic scale and we’ll do more Follow the Leader. I play a short musical idea using the pentatonic scale, they play it back. I give them time to come up with their own short musical ideas and we take turns playing those ideas for the class and then everyone playing it back.
After we get really comfortable with this new scale, again I’ll give them time to experiment on their own with the backing track. Once again, I’ll have a few students play their improvised solos for the class and we can talk about what they did well. Keep going back to those basic musical ideas: leave space in your solo, use different articulations and dynamics, and when in doubt, go back to the tonic and dominant.
Introducing the Blues Scale and 12-Bar Blues
This is about as far as we ever get with improvisation in my classes and at this point I’m mostly just introducing the new ideas and then letting the students experiment and practice on their own. Before we formally learn about the blues, I’ll start using more blues backing tracks so the students get used to hearing that chord progression. When I’m ready to teach them about the blues, they’ve already experienced it and played along with it multiple times. We talk about how to make a major pentatonic scale into a blues scale – just add the flat 3. My kids get so excited by that one blue note. Then we talk about the 12-bar blues form. At that point, I just let them go and play. After they experiment a little, I’ll have a few students take turns playing solos for the whole 12 bars.
Things to Consider
A lot of students are very uncomfortable improvising in front of the class. Acknowledge that but don’t let it become an excuse. Make your class a safe place by starting small with very short solos, always being positive and encouraging, and making sure EVERYONE solos at some point. Don’t make a big deal about it. It’s just what we do here, and everyone does it.
We are so lucky to have so many backing tracks available through YouTube and other streaming services. Take advantage of them! Try to use a variety of different backing tracks in different keys and styles, but I would also recommend that you spend a few days using the same backing track as you work through the activities. As the students get used to the harmonies and style of a specific backing track, they’ll get more confident and start experimenting more.
If you aren’t comfortable with improv yourself, learn along with your students! There are so many resources available online. You can find all sorts of videos with play-back and improv activities online. I would also encourage you to put yourself out there and just try it. You can’t be any worse than your students, so just give it a go and see what you can do.