“These exercises will make you better at baroque improv. First, try doing some baroque improv with your left hand, and make it sound nice” *proceeds to play really nice baroque melody on left hand “Okay, so if you practice this, you will get better at baroque improv” Okay, got it, thanks for the helpful information! 😂
Its a shame there is almost no source of information how to actually compose polyphonic music. Maybe I will start making some videos of what I know if people are interested
Best video ever! So happy to finally find great explanatiok on how to play as Bach; different rythms! Going to try this tomorrow! Thank you so much! Would like a part 2, maybe?
Just the rhythmic exercises alone will do so much for ones playing. I know you said don't worry about the notes, but I want it sound as great as yours, moving harmonically so naturally. Going to explore more and really looking forward to watching your next videos. Thanks!
The filled in notes without the stems are called quarter notes in (american) english. The notes with the stems are called eighth notes. The 1 - - 4 1 - - 4 1 - - 4… rhythm is called a dotted rhythm.
Baroque piano always had like a church or sometimes even a 90's rock vibe to them. This video is a hidden and underrated gem! I hope this gets a million more views.
Thank you for the kind words; I'm very happy to hopefully be sharing some tips for improvisation since I love to do it and I think more people should ;-)
Fantastic video! I’m really looking forward to watching the rest of your channel. You and the guy at Cedarvillemusic have by far the best information on this subject.
Many thanks! I really want to upload more "tutorial" like content, but I'm just trying to find a bit of time these days; it's been tough to work :-) Cedarvillemusic has really awesome videos, especially on interesting technical topics like /partimenti/. ( see ruclips.net/user/cedarvillemusic ). There is very little information on baroque impro on the internet, both because it's very difficult to have "theory" on how to improvise, and also because the musical culture nowadays sadly totally forgot (or worse, belittles) improvisation in many forms; but I hope we can change this if more and more people start improvising again :-) !
Wow, I just tried everything you suggested and was amazed at what came out. I was very inspired! It is interesting what you said about rhythm and the left hand. I’m a cellist and I played the drums as a teenager so I think those instruments and playing Bach have helped to integrate my hands on keyboard. (on piano I’ve played more Bach than anything else) Thanks so much for this! I’m glad Blanc et Noir recommended it.
Hello borogrove your works is wonderful... I find it powerful and very inspiring to see you improvise... especially in fast tempos where you reach a level of excellence and mastery that is also rarely achieved (like Gould maybe)... I would really like you to make videos, in the style of Bach, several modulations (several key signatures) exercises with perhaps melodic variants... In any case I encourages you to continue in this way... Thanks for all
Hey! I just want to say that your videos finally made me jump into practicing counterpoint. Your style of teaching really resonates with the way I play, and that alone made a huge difference to other videos on youtube. I will be checking more of your content. Thank you!!
I love hooking up my piano to a roland sc88pro, and do these kind of exercises using baroque instruments, , violins, flutes, harpsichords etc Really gets fun at times, I just made some pirateshit
If you can play jazz standards, try playing them locked hands, that is, melody duplicated (in octaves) by the bottom voice of the LH. This doesn't, of course, address different rhythms, but that can happen in the different comping (chord playing, including, of course, some voice leading) in the LH and RH while playing. An easier LH exercise from jazz standards is to play the (decorated) melody with the LH and comp with the RH -- Using different rhythms, of course, Or just play the melody (decorated) and a walking bass (which is actually a counter melody) with as usual, or upside down, with walking bass in the RH and decorated melody in LH. I think there is much overlap between thinking baroque and thinking jazz.
@Borogrove I hope you're doing well. I'm new to your channel. As a harpsichordist, I must say your improv skills are absolutely spectacular and out of this world. You can improvise with such ease, elegance and emotion, just like it was in the past until the 19th century. Curiously enough, skills like improvation and ornamentation are not encouraged as much as they should in formal, traditional, professional instruction (like conservatoires, academies or even Early Music faculties and departments, if you can believe it. You find it more in Jazz departments, but still...). It'd be nice if you could make perhaps a Q&A vid, speaking a bit of your own musical education process since childhood to RUclips, and pehaps share some step-by-step exercises, processes, tips and musical habits to develop improvisation skills, in a structured manner.
Hello! And let me start by apologizing; I just noticed that your comment was being held by RUclips’s gremlins “for review”, and I had to manually approve it. Many thanks for your very kind words and I *completely* agree; it’s a shame that improvisation is not more widespread in the classical teaching of music. I also think *concerts* should allow for more improvised music from the musicians with the audience mentally “allowing” for it or *even better* taking part in it :) Making a Q&A is a great idea and something I’ve been thinking about for a little while! Many thanks for the suggestion; I’ll do a proper Q&A video sometimes, and since il be getting my feet wet with streaming some live Impros here I’ll be glad to answer any questions during the streams. Thank you again and apologies for the delayed appearance of your comment!
I am trying to do this one year ago,it is getting better now,just one thing practice,but after l saw your video, still a million miles to go!How can I contact you,I have so many questions about improving fugue
I'm very happy, that's the most important thing! At the end of the day, the best theory/tips/etc.. are the things you'll learn by improvising yourself. Cheers, and keep improvising :-)
I'm glad it was helpful! I'll try to post more videos soon; By the way, you have great videos, and I can surely learn a great deal from you too! Cheers, and thanks for the comment
I was thinking giving us reusable small fragments in 2 voices would be cool eg ascending or descending bass line quarter notes with upper eighth note melody or bass line triad in various inversions or various melodic fragments that we could combine together like at around 11:00. As a guitarist I’m looking at the lute suites in particular for various ideas.
That's such a great idea; I'll for sure give *abstract* ways to think about mechanical patterns when improvising, but also covering *concrete* small lines is something I will definitely do; Thanks again for the suggestion! Guitar is an awesome instrument for baroque music; you must surely know the wonderful videos featuring Ted Greene on baroque impro on YT :-) The lute suites are really wonderful, and I always wanted to play some piano transcriptions; Actually, I might use them for concrete small fragments/ways to steal fragments from existing music. E.g BWV 997 (ruclips.net/video/BZvP0_OPMeE/видео.html) is wonderful for this!
Yes! I do plan to finish my little tour of what I called the "modes" of impro, and the ones using the head (where you think about what to play) are definitely more melody centric! :-)
I recently started learning to write music after only playing sheets for years and this video was really helpful but I don't quite understand how you avoid playing dissonances when improvising, are there any specific exercises for learning this ?
I have to ask when you use the circle of fifths do you avoid the melodic minor scale in the melody? Am i right about this? Sorry about my bad comments in the past i am really trying to learn improvisation
Definitely subscribed. I’d love advice on how to start thinking about the harmonic progression next. I do this and try to throw a V-I every now and then, but that’s even difficult to conceptualize now 😂
Thank you! I'm very glad to be of help :-) I'm purposefully staying away from talking too much about harmonic progressions because the danger of this is that people risk to "be stuck" in the harmonic pattern they choose rather then improvising a good melody+rhythm and letting *them* drive the harmony where it wants to go. That said I 100% understand and agree that it's always useful to have a few harmonic ideas, especially when starting out; > Throw a V-I every now and then.. You know.. seriously that's like 60% of music ;-0 You can try to "ornament" your V-I and let your harmonic exploration start from there. (I think that it's a better way than thinking about modulation.) A few ideas: 1. Try a I-IV-V-I (Okay, just a fuller cadenza) 2. Try a II-V-I (Note how the II has similar properties than the IV; Can you theorize why?) 3. Try one of the cadenzas above.. in a different melodic /mode/ (Ex. Dorian, natural minor, etc..) 4. Try Plagal-Cadenzas: IV -> I I'll soon try to post a video that talks about "patterns"; This should help with having slighlty less things to think about and still the same number of notes :-0 Cheers!
@@Borogrove wow, thank you so much!! I took a picture of this comment! I am really looking forward to your next videos that will help me think less about it 😂 my brain is exploding and I’m only using two voices. When I only focus on rhythm, it is easier, but I am doing parallel 4ths 5ths and octaves accidentally (I guess 4ths are okay except in invertible counterpoint, which I am NOT trying yet 😂)
@@Borogrove oh, and I believe ii IV both have a subdominant function because they share 2 notes, scale degrees 4 and 6 lead to 5 and 7 naturally (or something of that manner).
@@johnprice3341 iimin7 pretty much sounds like IV where they both lead to V. Try not resolve your melody all the time, if you use V - I too much it will get boring. Like Borogrove said use differnets cadanzas.
@@philip.stigaard we were talking about triads, mostly without the 5th because I said I’m practicing with 2 voices. You need at least 3 voices to hear 7th chords. Also, it’s not very good advice to tell me practicing a bunch of V-I’s is boring. Improvising good counterpoint is hard enough for beginners in that area, so I start with the most simple cadence, then slowly add on as I’m comfortable.
Hey Michael, I'm not sure if you're referring to a specific part of the video, but generally the harmony I used here is very simple stuff based around the typical stuff: (1) The perfect cadenza V -> I (2) Modulate, I -> IV -> V -> I (3) Repeat the cadenza many times to get a *circles of fifths* (which I used often when showing the rhythms) V -> I -> V -> I -> V -> I (but changing tonalities so the V, and I change with each cycle) (4) Sometimes for a minimal amount of spiciness you put a second interval (2 semitones). The main feature of the second is that it adds tension since it's a bit like a loaded spring that wants to resolve to a third. Typically this can be used in a cadenza where you do I -> V7 -> I which can be viewed as the normal I -> V -> I but with an added second interval (created internally in the seventh in V7, especially if V7 is not in fundamental position) which resolves. I need to do a specific video just for second intervals by the way :-) As you can see, as far as I could extrapolate when rewatching some parts of this video I really didn't use sophisticated harmony. (In fact, I claim that most harmony can be quite easily be reduced to a very very simple code construction, if you add a minimal understanding of polyphony and counterpoint *at the same time*, just like we reduced analysing seventh chords to analysing the role of a dominant V + looking at the induced voice leading of a second resolving to a 3rd)
So in terms of counterpoint the conception of harmony is horizontal. Beside this, to improvise it is fundamental to know baroque changes like in jazz music (wich is my background as improviser).But I'm wondering if all this complex forms of counterpoint, from the point of view of the improviser, are moving lines inside an harmonic structure? Do you think Bach approached his improvisations like that?
Many thanks for your very interesting question! I definitely think that harmony is very helpful when improvising, but I think that harmony emerged as a science to study counterpoint when it just appeared. In older contrapuntal pieces (medieval, renaissance) harmony is harder to define, both because many modes/scales are used in which modern harmony which mostly assumes major/minor or pentatonic scales might work worse. Now, harmony is certainly an invaluable tool to our understanding of music; I think a good comparison is, harmony is to counterpoint what thermodynamics is to trying to look at the velocity and position of all particles in a gas. As such, I think we can now have both viewpoints on the subject; We could view harmony as a natural consequence of good counterpoint, or we could view pieces as having a harmonic structure, and counterpoint being applied inside it. I think Bach was a master of both Harmony *and* Counterpoint, maybe the only master in both at the same time, which should be somehow prohibited by conservation laws of the universe, but an exception was probably made in Bach's case ;-) Thus, when improvising I recommend here to focus on the counterpoint and rhythm; not because harmony is less important/interesting, but for 3 reasons: 1. it's easier to find resources/courses on harmony than counterpoint imo 2. I think it's harder to "work" on counterpoint; It seems to come from experience (I hope? I'll continue improvising to find out :-) 3. Avoiding to think too much about harmony can allow us to make mistakes which might be interesting!
@@Borogrove Indeed? Thank you very much for this interesting video. My concern is that improvisation usually brings the repetitio of familiar patterns. I wonder if composing is not a more cerebral work that needs reflection. I remember my fugue lessons and all the rules for the answers. In the baroque era this was natural for the composers for us it is less. But your video is very valuable for piano technique.
@@mauriceam To you and Sebastian, you can look at the materials by Derek Remes on his website for information on the German thoroughbass school of music education, which is how Bach learnt.
@@AlessandroSistiMusic I will. But I remember the hours I spent in the study and writing of fugues and cannot understand how I could improvise without making a lot of mistakes. Great differences also between Handel and Bach counterpoints
Ah! Great question; The general answer would be that it's the same whether someone is left/right handed as the left hand is usually still less used to having melodies *if* you've played and practiced a "typical" keyboard repertoire. I do think that being left-handed is actually a good way to have the brain already used to the left hand though! As a right handed normie, I actually wanted to force myself to use the left hand to write and do some other activies to encourage left hand independence haha! The main test is to try improvising with one hand only and to compare the ease of improvising with the L or R hand. Another good test is to try polyrhythms; Try to play constant rhythm notes in the L hand and a more difficult rhythm in the R hand, then switch the rhythms to the other hands; which direction is easier? I think part of the problem is that the right hand (whether one is L or R handed) is always "on top" and the brain is used to listen to a melody at the top of the stack of sounds. Working on the left hand is all about training the hand, but also training the brain to listen "at the bottom"... since at the end of the day the desirable thing is to be versatile ;-) Thanks for the question, I hope this helps, and don't hesitate if you have any others!
Many thanks for your kind words! I'm not teaching music professionally no, just trying to share the few things I've learned from heretical practice of improvisation haha :-) I *do* want to make higher quality versions of such videos in the future (with more edited/concentrated tips) and (on the other end of the spectrum) I'd like to have some sort of live question and answer format, because the "liveness" is just *so much more* appropriate when talking about improvisation! Cheers and thanks again for listening
Unfortnuately not on the top of my head :/ You can find many books about harmony or even contrapunctus, but the techniques in the books are difficult to apply "on the fly" (in real time). I'll try to post some tips and tricks soon :-)
there's all the Gjerdingen *massive* online ressource of historical partimenti, which is how improvisation was taught in Italy in the XVII century I think : over fixed bass movements and harmonies. Super interesting :)
Many thanks! Unfortunately not really :/ There are a few classics such as the Gradus ad Parnassum (on counterpoint, and historic!) or Rimsky-Korsakov's practical harmony book, but I'm not aware of any book directly on improvisation! The best way to learn it to keep doing it I guess? Even if we don't learn anything new, at least we'll have fun improvising ;-)
@@Epithom there's all the Gjerdingen *massive* online ressource of historical partimenti, which is how improvisation was taught in Italy in the XVII century I think : over fixed bass movements and harmonies. Super interesting :)
Many thanks; if you keep playing you’ll be even better than me in your own style! I’ve been playing for quite a long time, like 14+ years but improvising for less though ;)
I hope I can get an answer.. Which scales are you using? Are you key changing everytime or using things like negative harmony or circle of fitfs? Would be VERY HELPFUL to get an answer..
Hey! Ty for the question :-). Normally I reply to pretty much all comments and questions, however I haven’t done this for the last like.. 2 months because of stupid reasons. My apologies to you or anyone else affected by this
@@Borogrove oh wow.. Didn't expect such a fast and helpful answer.. First of all thanks alot! If you wouldn't mind I've one more question: Are there some rules to care of for the left hand? Like resolving with right hand or can I really create a melody by its own? Do I have to use the same scale like dorian?
Wow these improvisations are insane. Thanks for sharing. When we’re doing these exercises, how do we make sure the voices converge in 3rds and 6ths so it sounds “baroque?” I get some schoenbergy sounding stuff bc my melodies don’t converge properly to form good harmony
Firstly, if it sounds like Schoenberg, I would consider it a great success ;-) For these exercises it's perfectly normal to have weird melodies, and it even means that you're doing them right by focusing on the rythms. The new videos I've posted on the "speaking" mode-of-improvisation gives some exercises that help with working melodically somewhat more. That said, I'm going to post a "speaking II" video soon that has a melodic/harmonic base so one can just focus on other stuff and have "baroque sound" automatically ;-) Finally, I'll also give some "construction rules" (such as what you mention, 3rds and 6ths) to have automatic ok-sounding things. Many thanks for your question!
Borogrove haha yes of course it doesn’t actually sound like schoenberg. I just meant it’s not baroque like I want and it’s more dissonant. Thanks for the quick and informative reply!
In this regard I look to the modern master of classical improvisation, Barry Harris. He advises practicing scales in 3rds and so on to get the feel and sound right. Start with ascending scales hands together a 10th apart or something. Then descending, then contrary. I also highly advise you check out his instruction, invaluable for improvisation in general.
Many thanks for the comment; This is a really good idea and I really need to make a video about it at some point. I was also thinking of potentially doing a lifestream side it could fit better for impro and people asking questions etc (of course I’d post the recording). I’ll wait to have the RUclips community tab (1000 subscribers !) to ask people what they’d prefer :-)
I would like to learn how you do the circle of 5ths or 4ths - where the melody idea is repeated as a pattern but progresses. Is that makes sense. Can you do a video that shows how to do that? I'd greatly appreciate it!
Yes! It's definitely on my to-do list :-) I didn't want to cover harmonic circles too much because they can be dangerous and trap people into not thinking melodically enough, but I do want to cover them at some point since they *are* really useful. I'll split this into 2 videos, and the first one should come hopefully soon(tm)? (1) - Patterns (Just playing with patterns, operations we can do on them. How to improvise with them. Reflections, mirroring, etc..) (2) - Harmonic Walks Many thanks for the comment :-)
@@Borogrove awesome! Thank you! It's been awhile since I have had access to my piano. But that should be soon! I'm looking forward to learning your ideas.
Of course! Feel free to send me a mail to my mail address (You can find it on my YT channel under "About"->show mail address). I just fixed a bug with my mail filters recently that sent many mails to unreachable folders, my apologies if you already sent me a mail an I took looonng to reply ;-) Cheers!
Hehe, I *wish* it were an improvisation :-) It's the gigue from Bach's partita number 4, my favorite version is by Sokolov: (ruclips.net/video/46PgAog8OR4/видео.html) (If you have perfect pitch, the tone is slightly shifted so it might bother you; I don't so I'm perfectly happy with shifted tones ;-)
Oh man, that was *really *really* not my intention; and if I pushed this impression on you I must apologize! On the countrary, being left handed is a great help for counterpoint and I even considered only using my left hand to write etc.. for a month to be more ambidextrous and maybe help with music.. That said, in terms of music I still think even left handers have a "musical" left hand which has been trained to mostly do accompaniment since nearly all music (even baroque music!) works like that, so it's good to work the left hand specifically! Cheers,
Bonjour is there a way i can contact you. id like to begin baroque piano study, car jaimerais énormément développer ma musicalité. je suis guitariste. pouvoir jouer des impromtues serait pour moi un reve. jaimerais prendre les bons pas pour my rendre. apprendre les bonnes pieces. let me know if you can help. i understand theory. i play jazz guitar. but am a novice piano player. im willing to give it 5 to 10 years. practicing everyday. i just dont know where to start. merci tant
HIs improvisations with just his left hand, are more convincing than when I use both, and my feet...sigh. One criticism though, the difference in volume between the piano and voice is a nightmare. I keep having to turn it way down when you are playing, and way up when you are talking.
Keep improvising with just one hand and very soon you’ll be better than mine with your own style! Also ty for the feedback about the sound; you’re *absolutely* right. In future videos I’ll make sure to use a second mic for the voice.
This was about as helpful as listening to The Art of Fugue for learning how to improvise. I think you severely overestimate how sharp some of us are. 🙃
Dayum! Many thanks for the feedback Tim! Yes, I totally agree, not only am I rambly and slowpaced, I also don't offer that much direct help for people just jumping into improvising. I definitely want to do some more tutorials tho, learning from my mistakes 🙂 While I still stand by the few things I said in this video I think it's funny how RUclips's algorithm has elected this video from my channel as the first one it guides people towards, but I'll definitely do my best to change that haha! Many thanks for the feedback again Tim!
The notes that you play have a musical meaning and they are not random as you say. This is the big difficulty, to play something with musical meaning! and you don't explain enough. If the goal is only the rhythm we can practice clapping . Too much information, in my opinion it will be more understandable if you present only one point in every video. Finally thank a lot for your contribution to the public
“These exercises will make you better at baroque improv. First, try doing some baroque improv with your left hand, and make it sound nice”
*proceeds to play really nice baroque melody on left hand
“Okay, so if you practice this, you will get better at baroque improv”
Okay, got it, thanks for the helpful information! 😂
This video is one of the most informative videos ive ever seen on youtube.
Many thanks! I'll try to post more tips soon :-) Thanks for watching!
I am just learning baroque and counterpoint and I can say this is by far the most informative video I've seen too!
Same!
Its a shame there is almost no source of information how to actually compose polyphonic music. Maybe I will start making some videos of what I know if people are interested
Awesome stuff, yes!
This was exactly what I needed, this guy is a legend
One of the best videos on this topic!
Thank you for your time and for putting this out there
Best video ever! So happy to finally find great explanatiok on how to play as Bach; different rythms! Going to try this tomorrow! Thank you so much! Would like a part 2, maybe?
Yes! A part 2 (and following) is definitely a great idea. I'll work on these things ;)
Just the rhythmic exercises alone will do so much for ones playing. I know you said don't worry about the notes, but I want it sound as great as yours, moving harmonically so naturally. Going to explore more and really looking forward to watching your next videos. Thanks!
Have you found any rhythm training exercises in barroco style?
This is awesome man. So cool to see someone improvising in this style! Keep the videos coming 🎹🎶
Will do! Many thanks for the kind words
I could listen to your improvisation exercises all day!
22:03 May the Force be with you ... thanks for your great advices !
The filled in notes without the stems are called quarter notes in (american) english. The notes with the stems are called eighth notes. The 1 - - 4 1 - - 4 1 - - 4… rhythm is called a dotted rhythm.
It really helps a lot as you explain, now it starts to sound baroque to me when I improvise something. Thank you very much!
Baroque piano always had like a church or sometimes even a 90's rock vibe to them. This video is a hidden and underrated gem! I hope this gets a million more views.
Thank you for the kind words; I'm very happy to hopefully be sharing some tips for improvisation since I love to do it and I think more people should ;-)
Classical Music originally belonged to the church. Classical music was not founded by the world.
@@Get_Yo_LifeYou originally belonged to the church.
@@ylevision7088 what
Thank you! I was waiting for this!
Phenomenal! Thank you so much for this. Excellent tutorial.
I'm very glad you found it useful! I'll try to post more similar tutorials when I have a bit of time :-) cheers!
This is why I pay for internet🤣🤣🤣. Insanely well constructed and informative video my man
This is amazing, thank you so much for sharing and helping us all
Great video! Very instructive and helpful. Also fun to listen to your playing!
Fantastic video! I’m really looking forward to watching the rest of your channel. You and the guy at Cedarvillemusic have by far the best information on this subject.
Many thanks! I really want to upload more "tutorial" like content, but I'm just trying to find a bit of time these days; it's been tough to work :-)
Cedarvillemusic has really awesome videos, especially on interesting technical topics like /partimenti/. ( see ruclips.net/user/cedarvillemusic ).
There is very little information on baroque impro on the internet, both because it's very difficult to have "theory" on how to improvise, and also because the musical culture nowadays sadly totally forgot (or worse, belittles) improvisation in many forms; but I hope we can change this if more and more people start improvising again :-) !
You made ma day 🙏☀️
This inspired me. Merci.
Thanks you maestro 😇
Wow, I just tried everything you suggested and was amazed at what came out. I was very inspired! It is interesting what you said about rhythm and the left hand. I’m a cellist and I played the drums as a teenager so I think those instruments and playing Bach have helped to integrate my hands on keyboard. (on piano I’ve played more Bach than anything else) Thanks so much for this! I’m glad Blanc et Noir recommended it.
Hello borogrove your works is wonderful... I find it powerful and very inspiring to see you improvise... especially in fast tempos where you reach a level of excellence and mastery that is also rarely achieved (like Gould maybe)... I would really like you to make videos, in the style of Bach, several modulations (several key signatures) exercises with perhaps melodic variants... In any case I encourages you to continue in this way... Thanks for all
Thank you for your all videos. I make notes and practice😊 You play like Glenn Gould.
Great video, thanks a lot. Could you explain something about the harmony and about the scales in baroque / your improvisations in this video ?
Easiest subscription I've ever made.
Hey!
I just want to say that your videos finally made me jump into practicing counterpoint.
Your style of teaching really resonates with the way I play, and that alone made a huge difference to other videos on youtube.
I will be checking more of your content.
Thank you!!
Hey Jorge! It’s awesome that your practicing counterpoint and improvisation. We need more impro in the world. Keep at it and have fun
I love hooking up my piano to a roland sc88pro, and do these kind of exercises using baroque instruments, , violins, flutes, harpsichords etc
Really gets fun at times, I just made some pirateshit
Awesome! Using VSTs is a really great way to improvise because sometimes changing instrument can help get new ideas.
The Most underrated video on entire RUclips!
Thank you. I'm listening to this for the third time. ;-) very helpful and good explantation
This is the most helpful videos thank you for the tutorials this helps me alot~
I never knew this was possible! Thank you!!!
Thank you so much … so well explained …
Please do a full improvisation on the subject at 14:15 . Such a beautiful subject!
Excellent!!great pianist!congratulations!i'm waiting more videos like this!!thanks for sharing!
Bonjour ! Ça fait plaisir de voir une vidéo intéressante faite par un français ;)
11:55 this exercise somehow reminded me of William Byrd’s “Miserere” (from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book) lol
Hello, children! Today we start the first lesson on baroque improvisation. -- *Makes complicated baroque noises* -- And that's how you do it!
If you can play jazz standards, try playing them locked hands, that is, melody duplicated (in octaves) by the bottom voice of the LH. This doesn't, of course, address different rhythms, but that can happen in the different comping (chord playing, including, of course, some voice leading) in the LH and RH while playing. An easier LH exercise from jazz standards is to play the (decorated) melody with the LH and comp with the RH -- Using different rhythms, of course, Or just play the melody (decorated) and a walking bass (which is actually a counter melody) with as usual, or upside down, with walking bass in the RH and decorated melody in LH. I think there is much overlap between thinking baroque and thinking jazz.
Very insightful, thank you!
Fantastic!!! Please post more!!
Thank you
Æ S T H E T IC You’re very welcome 😊!
@Borogrove I hope you're doing well. I'm new to your channel. As a harpsichordist, I must say your improv skills are absolutely spectacular and out of this world. You can improvise with such ease, elegance and emotion, just like it was in the past until the 19th century. Curiously enough, skills like improvation and ornamentation are not encouraged as much as they should in formal, traditional, professional instruction (like conservatoires, academies or even Early Music faculties and departments, if you can believe it. You find it more in Jazz departments, but still...). It'd be nice if you could make perhaps a Q&A vid, speaking a bit of your own musical education process since childhood to RUclips, and pehaps share some step-by-step exercises, processes, tips and musical habits to develop improvisation skills, in a structured manner.
Hello! And let me start by apologizing; I just noticed that your comment was being held by RUclips’s gremlins “for review”, and I had to manually approve it.
Many thanks for your very kind words and I *completely* agree; it’s a shame that improvisation is not more widespread in the classical teaching of music. I also think *concerts* should allow for more improvised music from the musicians with the audience mentally “allowing” for it or *even better* taking part in it :)
Making a Q&A is a great idea and something I’ve been thinking about for a little while! Many thanks for the suggestion; I’ll do a proper Q&A video sometimes, and since il be getting my feet wet with streaming some live Impros here I’ll be glad to answer any questions during the streams.
Thank you again and apologies for the delayed appearance of your comment!
Oh my godddddd
This is super helpful thanks
You're very welcome! I love the topic so I'll definitely post more tutorial/tips videos in the future :-)
I am trying to do this one year ago,it is getting better now,just one thing practice,but after l saw your video, still a million miles to go!How can I contact you,I have so many questions about improving fugue
this really inspired me to try this!
I'm very happy, that's the most important thing!
At the end of the day, the best theory/tips/etc.. are the things you'll learn by improvising yourself.
Cheers, and keep improvising :-)
really great video
Thank you!
God bless, Thanks
You’re very welcome :-) thanks for watching.
Your left hand imrpv was very wonderful. I wish you could dona fugue on that whole musical idea! It was rich.
Many thanks Aaron!
Excellent job and presentation. I feel like I could learn a great deal from you.
I'm glad it was helpful! I'll try to post more videos soon; By the way, you have great videos, and I can surely learn a great deal from you too!
Cheers, and thanks for the comment
@@Borogrove I appreciate your kind words! And I look forward to more of your content. :)
You are my new hero
I’m not sure I’m a hero ;-), but keep improvising and you’ll be better than me in your own style
16:20 is beautiful
Thank you :-)
How do you improvise such beautiful and Bach-like Melodies?? I get the rhythm but every time I improvise it doesn’t sound like the Bach style
At 3:57 it sounded pretty good too!
I was thinking giving us reusable small fragments in 2 voices would be cool eg ascending or descending bass line quarter notes with upper eighth note melody or bass line triad in various inversions or various melodic fragments that we could combine together like at around 11:00. As a guitarist I’m looking at the lute suites in particular for various ideas.
That's such a great idea; I'll for sure give *abstract* ways to think about mechanical patterns when improvising, but also covering *concrete* small lines is something I will definitely do; Thanks again for the suggestion!
Guitar is an awesome instrument for baroque music; you must surely know the wonderful videos featuring Ted Greene on baroque impro on YT :-)
The lute suites are really wonderful, and I always wanted to play some piano transcriptions; Actually, I might use them for concrete small fragments/ways to steal fragments from existing music. E.g BWV 997 (ruclips.net/video/BZvP0_OPMeE/видео.html) is wonderful for this!
Thanks for posting this fantastic and informative video! (i know im a bit late to the party)
You're very welcome! I'll definitely want to post more such tutorial videos soon, but I'm a bit slower than I would like atm ;-)
lovely :)
Merci pour tous ces exercices ! Je devine à ton accent que tu es français ?
excellent
Thank you :-) !
Does anyone by chance have a lead sheet chord chart for what he is playing ? Just checking
Great lesson
Will you ever do a video on baroque melodies?
Yes!
I do plan to finish my little tour of what I called the "modes" of impro, and the ones using the head (where you think about what to play) are definitely more melody centric! :-)
@@Borogrove Good to know!
I recently started learning to write music after only playing sheets for years and this video was really helpful but I don't quite understand how you avoid playing dissonances when improvising, are there any specific exercises for learning this ?
Good job man!
Many thanks Angelo!
I have to ask when you use the circle of fifths do you avoid the melodic minor scale in the melody? Am i right about this? Sorry about my bad comments in the past i am really trying to learn improvisation
Definitely subscribed. I’d love advice on how to start thinking about the harmonic progression next. I do this and try to throw a V-I every now and then, but that’s even difficult to conceptualize now 😂
Thank you! I'm very glad to be of help :-)
I'm purposefully staying away from talking too much about harmonic progressions because the danger of this is that people risk to "be stuck" in the harmonic pattern they choose rather then improvising a good melody+rhythm and letting *them* drive the harmony where it wants to go. That said I 100% understand and agree that it's always useful to have a few harmonic ideas, especially when starting out;
> Throw a V-I every now and then..
You know.. seriously that's like 60% of music ;-0
You can try to "ornament" your V-I and let your harmonic exploration start from there. (I think that it's a better way than thinking about modulation.) A few ideas:
1. Try a I-IV-V-I (Okay, just a fuller cadenza)
2. Try a II-V-I (Note how the II has similar properties than the IV; Can you theorize why?)
3. Try one of the cadenzas above.. in a different melodic /mode/ (Ex. Dorian, natural minor, etc..)
4. Try Plagal-Cadenzas: IV -> I
I'll soon try to post a video that talks about "patterns"; This should help with having slighlty less things to think about and still the same number of notes :-0
Cheers!
@@Borogrove wow, thank you so much!! I took a picture of this comment! I am really looking forward to your next videos that will help me think less about it 😂 my brain is exploding and I’m only using two voices. When I only focus on rhythm, it is easier, but I am doing parallel 4ths 5ths and octaves accidentally (I guess 4ths are okay except in invertible counterpoint, which I am NOT trying yet 😂)
@@Borogrove oh, and I believe ii IV both have a subdominant function because they share 2 notes, scale degrees 4 and 6 lead to 5 and 7 naturally (or something of that manner).
@@johnprice3341 iimin7 pretty much sounds like IV where they both lead to V. Try not resolve your melody all the time, if you use V - I too much it will get boring. Like Borogrove said use differnets cadanzas.
@@philip.stigaard we were talking about triads, mostly without the 5th because I said I’m practicing with 2 voices. You need at least 3 voices to hear 7th chords. Also, it’s not very good advice to tell me practicing a bunch of V-I’s is boring. Improvising good counterpoint is hard enough for beginners in that area, so I start with the most simple cadence, then slowly add on as I’m comfortable.
Can you break down the harmony you’re using?
Hey Michael,
I'm not sure if you're referring to a specific part of the video, but generally the harmony I used here is very simple stuff based around the typical stuff:
(1) The perfect cadenza V -> I
(2) Modulate, I -> IV -> V -> I
(3) Repeat the cadenza many times to get a *circles of fifths* (which I used often when showing the rhythms) V -> I -> V -> I -> V -> I (but changing tonalities so the V, and I change with each cycle)
(4) Sometimes for a minimal amount of spiciness you put a second interval (2 semitones). The main feature of the second is that it adds tension since it's a bit like a loaded spring that wants to resolve to a third. Typically this can be used in a cadenza where you do I -> V7 -> I which can be viewed as the normal I -> V -> I but with an added second interval (created internally in the seventh in V7, especially if V7 is not in fundamental position) which resolves.
I need to do a specific video just for second intervals by the way :-)
As you can see, as far as I could extrapolate when rewatching some parts of this video I really didn't use sophisticated harmony.
(In fact, I claim that most harmony can be quite easily be reduced to a very very simple code construction, if you add a minimal understanding of polyphony and counterpoint *at the same time*, just like we reduced analysing seventh chords to analysing the role of a dominant V + looking at the induced voice leading of a second resolving to a 3rd)
So in terms of counterpoint the conception of harmony is horizontal. Beside this, to improvise it is fundamental to know baroque changes like in jazz music (wich is my background as improviser).But I'm wondering if all this complex forms of counterpoint, from the point of view of the improviser, are moving lines inside an harmonic structure? Do you think Bach approached his improvisations like that?
Many thanks for your very interesting question!
I definitely think that harmony is very helpful when improvising, but I think that harmony emerged as a science to study counterpoint when it just appeared. In older contrapuntal pieces (medieval, renaissance) harmony is harder to define, both because many modes/scales are used in which modern harmony which mostly assumes major/minor or pentatonic scales might work worse. Now, harmony is certainly an invaluable tool to our understanding of music; I think a good comparison is, harmony is to counterpoint what thermodynamics is to trying to look at the velocity and position of all particles in a gas.
As such, I think we can now have both viewpoints on the subject; We could view harmony as a natural consequence of good counterpoint, or we could view pieces as having a harmonic structure, and counterpoint being applied inside it.
I think Bach was a master of both Harmony *and* Counterpoint, maybe the only master in both at the same time, which should be somehow prohibited by conservation laws of the universe, but an exception was probably made in Bach's case ;-)
Thus, when improvising I recommend here to focus on the counterpoint and rhythm; not because harmony is less important/interesting, but for 3 reasons:
1. it's easier to find resources/courses on harmony than counterpoint imo
2. I think it's harder to "work" on counterpoint; It seems to come from experience (I hope? I'll continue improvising to find out :-)
3. Avoiding to think too much about harmony can allow us to make mistakes which might be interesting!
@@Borogrove Indeed? Thank you very much for this interesting video. My concern is that improvisation usually brings the repetitio of familiar patterns. I wonder if composing is not a more cerebral work that needs reflection. I remember my fugue lessons and all the rules for the answers. In the baroque era this was natural for the composers for us it is less. But your video is very valuable for piano technique.
@@mauriceam To you and Sebastian, you can look at the materials by Derek Remes on his website for information on the German thoroughbass school of music education, which is how Bach learnt.
@@AlessandroSistiMusic I will. But I remember the hours I spent in the study and writing of fugues and cannot understand how I could improvise without making a lot of mistakes. Great differences also between Handel and Bach counterpoints
merci :)
Avec grand plaisir :-)
I'm left handed is it the reverse for me? should I work on right hand?
Ah! Great question; The general answer would be that it's the same whether someone is left/right handed as the left hand is usually still less used to having melodies *if* you've played and practiced a "typical" keyboard repertoire.
I do think that being left-handed is actually a good way to have the brain already used to the left hand though! As a right handed normie, I actually wanted to force myself to use the left hand to write and do some other activies to encourage left hand independence haha!
The main test is to try improvising with one hand only and to compare the ease of improvising with the L or R hand. Another good test is to try polyrhythms; Try to play constant rhythm notes in the L hand and a more difficult rhythm in the R hand, then switch the rhythms to the other hands; which direction is easier?
I think part of the problem is that the right hand (whether one is L or R handed) is always "on top" and the brain is used to listen to a melody at the top of the stack of sounds. Working on the left hand is all about training the hand, but also training the brain to listen "at the bottom"... since at the end of the day the desirable thing is to be versatile ;-)
Thanks for the question, I hope this helps, and don't hesitate if you have any others!
Whoa. You can really play.
Do you give Zoom lessons? How do I contact you!
Hi sir is it possible to learn it an put it in a gospel piano style?
Thank you very much that is quite inspiring! Real master you are, are you teaching professionally? However thank you very much, I will try it!
Many thanks for your kind words! I'm not teaching music professionally no, just trying to share the few things I've learned from heretical practice of improvisation haha :-)
I *do* want to make higher quality versions of such videos in the future (with more edited/concentrated tips) and (on the other end of the spectrum) I'd like to have some sort of live question and answer format, because the "liveness" is just *so much more* appropriate when talking about improvisation!
Cheers and thanks again for listening
hi, do know any book/research abt this technique?
Unfortnuately not on the top of my head :/ You can find many books about harmony or even contrapunctus, but the techniques in the books are difficult to apply "on the fly" (in real time). I'll try to post some tips and tricks soon :-)
there's all the Gjerdingen *massive* online ressource of historical partimenti, which is how improvisation was taught in Italy in the XVII century I think : over fixed bass movements and harmonies. Super interesting :)
@@andreatonero8553 could you give a link, please
@@t_mm_r "gjerdingen - monuments of partimenti" on google should take you to the site :)
@@andreatonero8553 thanks a lot!
Great stuff here! Can you give any book recommendations on baroque improvisation?
Many thanks! Unfortunately not really :/
There are a few classics such as the Gradus ad Parnassum (on counterpoint, and historic!) or Rimsky-Korsakov's practical harmony book, but I'm not aware of any book directly on improvisation!
The best way to learn it to keep doing it I guess? Even if we don't learn anything new, at least we'll have fun improvising ;-)
k, thanks :)
@@Epithom there's all the Gjerdingen *massive* online ressource of historical partimenti, which is how improvisation was taught in Italy in the XVII century I think : over fixed bass movements and harmonies. Super interesting :)
@@andreatonero8553 wow thanks! That hits the spot
Very much better than average.
thanks
Thanks for watching :-)
I'm a great fan of baroque music, I hope I can get mad skills like you one day.... By the way, how long have you been playing piano ?
Many thanks; if you keep playing you’ll be even better than me in your own style! I’ve been playing for quite a long time, like 14+ years but improvising for less though ;)
It's crazy how you can improvise like bach so easily...
I hope I can get an answer.. Which scales are you using? Are you key changing everytime or using things like negative harmony or circle of fitfs? Would be VERY HELPFUL to get an answer..
Hey! Ty for the question :-). Normally I reply to pretty much all comments and questions, however I haven’t done this for the last like.. 2 months because of stupid reasons. My apologies to you or anyone else affected by this
@@Borogrove oh wow.. Didn't expect such a fast and helpful answer.. First of all thanks alot!
If you wouldn't mind I've one more question:
Are there some rules to care of for the left hand? Like resolving with right hand or can I really create a melody by its own? Do I have to use the same scale like dorian?
That fugue by Chopin is actually great.
Wow these improvisations are insane. Thanks for sharing. When we’re doing these exercises, how do we make sure the voices converge in 3rds and 6ths so it sounds “baroque?” I get some schoenbergy sounding stuff bc my melodies don’t converge properly to form good harmony
Firstly, if it sounds like Schoenberg, I would consider it a great success ;-) For these exercises it's perfectly normal to have weird melodies, and it even means that you're doing them right by focusing on the rythms.
The new videos I've posted on the "speaking" mode-of-improvisation gives some exercises that help with working melodically somewhat more. That said, I'm going to post a "speaking II" video soon that has a melodic/harmonic base so one can just focus on other stuff and have "baroque sound" automatically ;-)
Finally, I'll also give some "construction rules" (such as what you mention, 3rds and 6ths) to have automatic ok-sounding things.
Many thanks for your question!
Borogrove haha yes of course it doesn’t actually sound like schoenberg. I just meant it’s not baroque like I want and it’s more dissonant. Thanks for the quick and informative reply!
In this regard I look to the modern master of classical improvisation, Barry Harris. He advises practicing scales in 3rds and so on to get the feel and sound right. Start with ascending scales hands together a 10th apart or something. Then descending, then contrary. I also highly advise you check out his instruction, invaluable for improvisation in general.
@@marcusstoica Barry is great!
hi. can you reccord us some of this licks? in slow motion of course
Many thanks for the comment; This is a really good idea and I really need to make a video about it at some point.
I was also thinking of potentially doing a lifestream side it could fit better for impro and people asking questions etc (of course I’d post the recording). I’ll wait to have the RUclips community tab (1000 subscribers !) to ask people what they’d prefer :-)
@@Borogrove let me know when you upload a video or to do the lifestream
I would like to learn how you do the circle of 5ths or 4ths - where the melody idea is repeated as a pattern but progresses. Is that makes sense. Can you do a video that shows how to do that? I'd greatly appreciate it!
Yes! It's definitely on my to-do list :-)
I didn't want to cover harmonic circles too much because they can be dangerous and trap people into not thinking melodically enough, but I do want to cover them at some point since they *are* really useful.
I'll split this into 2 videos, and the first one should come hopefully soon(tm)?
(1) - Patterns (Just playing with patterns, operations we can do on them. How to improvise with them. Reflections, mirroring, etc..)
(2) - Harmonic Walks
Many thanks for the comment :-)
@@Borogrove awesome! Thank you! It's been awhile since I have had access to my piano. But that should be soon! I'm looking forward to learning your ideas.
❤👍🙏
Hi I'm a jazz pianist trying to learn something about this world! Thanks for sharing your knowledge! Can I contact u in some way?
Of course! Feel free to send me a mail to my mail address (You can find it on my YT channel under "About"->show mail address). I just fixed a bug with my mail filters recently that sent many mails to unreachable folders, my apologies if you already sent me a mail an I took looonng to reply ;-)
Cheers!
What were you playing at 0:53 ? Was that an improvisation or a piece?
Hehe, I *wish* it were an improvisation :-)
It's the gigue from Bach's partita number 4, my favorite version is by Sokolov:
(ruclips.net/video/46PgAog8OR4/видео.html)
(If you have perfect pitch, the tone is slightly shifted so it might bother you; I don't so I'm perfectly happy with shifted tones ;-)
are you french ?
i mean way to make left handers feel like outcasts..
Oh man, that was *really *really* not my intention; and if I pushed this impression on you I must apologize!
On the countrary, being left handed is a great help for counterpoint and I even considered only using my left hand to write etc.. for a month to be more ambidextrous and maybe help with music..
That said, in terms of music I still think even left handers have a "musical" left hand which has been trained to mostly do accompaniment since nearly all music (even baroque music!) works like that, so it's good to work the left hand specifically!
Cheers,
Bonjour
is there a way i can contact you. id like to begin baroque piano study, car jaimerais énormément développer ma musicalité. je suis guitariste. pouvoir jouer des impromtues serait pour moi un reve. jaimerais prendre les bons pas pour my rendre. apprendre les bonnes pieces. let me know if you can help. i understand theory. i play jazz guitar. but am a novice piano player. im willing to give it 5 to 10 years. practicing everyday. i just dont know where to start. merci tant
if youd wish we can even book a lesson. i trust the insight of a wonderful artist. its what musical study has taught me.
HIs improvisations with just his left hand, are more convincing than when I use both, and my feet...sigh. One criticism though, the difference in volume between the piano and voice is a nightmare. I keep having to turn it way down when you are playing, and way up when you are talking.
Keep improvising with just one hand and very soon you’ll be better than mine with your own style!
Also ty for the feedback about the sound; you’re *absolutely* right. In future videos I’ll make sure to use a second mic for the voice.
The 6 people who disliked this are wrong
WHY do you have 3000 views
Because 3000 people viewed him.
@@matthewnabil *visible confusion*
16:20 Uff.
This was about as helpful as listening to The Art of Fugue for learning how to improvise. I think you severely overestimate how sharp some of us are. 🙃
Dayum! Many thanks for the feedback Tim!
Yes, I totally agree, not only am I rambly and slowpaced, I also don't offer that much direct help for people just jumping into improvising.
I definitely want to do some more tutorials tho, learning from my mistakes 🙂
While I still stand by the few things I said in this video I think it's funny how RUclips's algorithm has elected this video from my channel as the first one it guides people towards, but I'll definitely do my best to change that haha!
Many thanks for the feedback again Tim!
@@Borogrove I think it would be best if you treated us like pre-schoolers lol.
Why don't you do your tutorials in French?
No pls
The notes that you play have a musical meaning and they are not random as you say. This is the big difficulty, to play something with musical meaning! and you don't explain enough.
If the goal is only the rhythm we can practice clapping .
Too much information, in my opinion it will be more understandable if you present only one point in every video.
Finally thank a lot for your contribution to the public
You must be French