The mid-year concert at my studio is called the “January Jam”. This recital is all about creative skills and ensemble playing.
This year, all my students created some form of this “improvisation sandwich” as one of their performances.
To create a sandwich, they play a piece three times:
- Plain, as written
- Improvising the right hand, with the left hand as written
- As written but with embellishments
We’re working on the simplest of these embellishments in this video: repeated notes.
These kinds of creative activities open up new possibilities for my students. Some take it and run with it, others need more coaxing, but I believe all should be exposed to this type of music – alongside their more traditional reading work.
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Thank you for this idea. I will try it with my students.
Let me know how it goes Patsy! 🙂
Do you have a selection of repertoire that would be best assigned for this exercise?
Absolutely ANYTHING with a simple harmonic left hand. So anything with chords or long single notes in the left will work great – just steer clear of imitation and counterpoint. 😉
I really like this idea. I cannot wait to try it this week. I am already thinking of various pieces this would be amazing to see students try their creativity on.
Let me know how you go with it Kelly! 🙂
Love this Clip, will try it! Thank you!
Love this!! Nicola I tried this, But found students needed very clear ideas or guidelines to improvise, as they didn’t know where to start, and would not experiment once they figured out one version. I will be more persistent after reading this post. I love the idea of the sandwich, plus embellishments – never thought of it! Thanks!