Simple baroque improvisation exercises 

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!

Will do! Many thanks for the kind words

Hey Jorge! It’s awesome that your practicing counterpoint and improvisation. We need more impro in the world. Keep at it and have fun

Yes! A part 2 (and following) is definitely a great idea. I'll work on these things ;)

I'm very glad you found it useful! I'll try to post more similar tutorials when I have a bit of time :-) cheers!

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 ru-vid.com ). 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 :-) !

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

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. :)

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 not sure I’m a hero ;-), but keep improvising and you’ll be better than me in your own style

You're very welcome! I love the topic so I'll definitely post more tutorial/tips videos in the future :-)

Many thanks Aaron!

Many thanks Angelo!

Thank you!

Hello! And let me start by apologizing; I just noticed that your comment was being held by RU-vid’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!

Awesome! Using VSTs is a really great way to improvise because sometimes changing instrument can help get new ideas.

Æ S T H E T IC You’re very welcome 😊!

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 (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BZvP0_OPMeE.html) is wonderful for this!

Thank you :-) !

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!

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.

You’re very welcome :-) thanks for watching.

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 ;-)

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

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

Thank you :-)

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?

Avec grand plaisir :-)

Hehe, I *wish* it were an improvisation :-) It's the gigue from Bach's partita number 4, my favorite version is by Sokolov: (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-46PgAog8OR4.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 ;-)

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.

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!

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

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 ;)

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)

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!

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!

Thanks for watching :-)

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!

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 RU-vid 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

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.

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,

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 RU-vid'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.

if youd wish we can even book a lesson. i trust the insight of a wonderful artist. its what musical study has taught me.

Because 3000 people viewed him.

@@matthewnabil *visible confusion*

No pls