Improvise along with me
Using the interactive videos
This video shows me, improvising over a backing track, leaving room for you to improvise along with me.
This is how it works:
The two of us are going to improvise together, alternately. The music starts, and you can see and hear me start improvising. After two bars, it’s your turn to improvise for two bars. Then it’s my turn again, and we go on like that, one after another. That's all, believe me!
You don’t get more information than what you hear and see. That’s enough. Just follow your intuition and try things out; get inspired by what you hear. And enjoy what’s happening. Don’t worry about playing some poor lines; it’s a growing process. You can, of course, play with the same video more than once; every time will be different. Don’t try to play the same as you did before; enjoy the variation and freedom of choice. Over time, you will gain more self-confidence and experience more joy.
So, what accualy happens is that the two of us are having fun improvising alternately, without planning and thinking.
This is an anecdote about how I got the idea for this method. Read more »
Why not more information?
Information makes you think! And the more you think, the more difficult it becomes to play and improvise on intuition and by feeling. There is no doubt that every now and then you will start thinking, 'Which notes can be used in this piece? What's the root, what is the key, what scale can I use, etc.?' Accept that, and try to focus more on feeling and listening to the music. Just enjoy improvising along with me, without any prior knowledge.
One more example:
This video shows Marjan improvising over a complete video of about 3.40 minutes.
Previews
Here are a few previews out of the 24 available interactive improvisation videos in the SHOP.