Colourful Keys is primarily a blog for music teachers. However, this article is part of a series for PARENTS of music students. If you’re a music parent, read on to learn why your child’s piano lessons cover improvisation. If you’re a teacher, feel free to pass the link to this article on to parents in your studio.
Improvisation. When you hear this word, you may start thinking of smoke-filled rooms ringing with saxophone, piano and a funky bass trio. Or maybe you think of comedic riffing at an improv club or on a TV show like ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’.
If these images jump to mind when you hear the word “improvisation”, you may be wondering why on earth your child’s piano teacher includes so much improv in their lessons.
When our generation was young and taking piano lessons, our teachers generally didn’t include improvisation. Thankfully, the teaching of music has evolved and progressed. We no longer save the good, creative stuff until our students have every single music theory concept down pat.
These days, many teachers include improvisation from the very first lessons with any student.
So let’s talk about why this skill is so valuable, and why it deserves its place in your child’s core music curriculum.
Ear Training
With the very youngest piano students, improvisation helps them develop a sense of sound characteristics (high/low, loud/soft, long/short) and how to produce those sounds on the piano.
As students progress, typical improvisations have at least a few guardrails (for example, key and metre), so it’ll become quite clear to a student what sounds “good”.
As a student plays within the “rules” we’ve given them for any particular improvisation activity, they begin to listen and acknowledge that some things sound better than others. They realise that some notes and rhythms sound good together – and some just don’t.
As weird as it sounds, playing “wrong” notes is a good thing in improvisation. It can lead to “aha” moments about what notes are right in key signatures, and helps get ears in shape for hearing right and wrong notes in the pieces they read.
Technical Mastery
Improvisation opportunities are an excellent training ground for learning scales, chords, modalities and the like. Just as improv allows a student to hear what notes belong in a given key, it also shows them what kinds of fingerings and hand positions make sense for that scale or chord – and which ones don’t.
Rather than using dry explanations or pictures to show students where to put their hands or fingers, the learning just seems to “click” when a student is given the chance to experiment first.
So, yes, your child’s teacher may have an “improvise first, explain second” teaching plan in place, but rest assured it’s meant to accelerate their learning – not detract from it.
Expression
When it comes to encouraging young students to play with feeling, there’s no better training ground than an improvisation exercise.
A teacher might use a prompt like “Imagine a snowy day in a forest of pine trees.” or “What kinds of sounds might mimic those of a lion?” to help students understand how to play expressively.
Yes, we can explain the meaning of dynamic markings like forte (f) and piano (p), and ask your child to play loud and soft when they see these in written pieces, but helping your kid play with genuine emotion and energy has its roots in simply exploring what sounds can be made.
Stress Relief
As a beginning musician, it can be hard to put all the pieces together to make written music come alive. There’s note reading, rhythm, keeping a steady beat, dynamics (volume) and expression to worry about, all at the same time.
So when a musician gets the chance to just play, it can be freeing!
Although improvisation usually has a few rules of play, as long as a student keeps those limited parameters in mind, they can then play just about anything they want without fear of getting it “wrong”.
For so many students, the idea that they can go to town on the keys without anxiety about missed notes or rhythms relieves stress and amps up their musical enjoyment. And, at the end of the day, shouldn’t that be our goal? To help your children fall in love with music?
Shakespeare once said, “If music be the food of love, play on.”
Improvisation is just the sort of “meal” that could feed a lifelong love affair with music-making.
Does your child improvise, perhaps at home or in their lessons?
Let us know in the comments. We’d love to hear what you’re thinking, and will do our best to help.
For more like this, check out other articles from our “music parent” series:
- How involved should you be in your child’s music practice?
- Why NOT to Teach Your Child Music Staff Mnemonics
- Help Your Child Develop a Solid Music Practice Habit
- Is your child’s piano practice “right”?
- Why is my child’s piano teacher playing games in lessons?
- Why does my child have piano listening assignments?
- Is your child ready for a piano exam?
- Music Appreciation for the Family