I'm very happy you did as well haha :-) Cheers!

..It's strange.. I really thought I had hearted and replied, but I must have forgotten to post reply :-) Sorry for the delayed reply; Thank you so much! I'm more than happy to share the few things I know and hopefully incite other people to share the joy of improvisation :-) Also, I feel that there is generally a lack of content regarding impro both on the internet (as you justly remark) but also sadly in the literature and musical conservatory/schools. Furthermore, while there *is* theoretical content, it's good to note that impro is very much "practice" driven and many techniques must be adapted for "real-time" use. This reminds me that I need to post more videos for tips regarding improvisation :-) Thanks again!

Many thanks! Yes the connection between what the head hears and what the fingers play is really important! Although it’s also worth considering the fact that sometimes the connection works both ways: it might be interesting for the fingers to try something new to “teach” the head a new trick. For instance a “mistake” by the fingers may teach the head a much better voice leading than what was prepared :)

Thank you for listening

Thanks again for the great feedback! First you're absolutely right about the voice volume; I've been lazy and tried to get away with only one microphone, but It's impossible to capture both a piano and voice decently (and I don't even capture the piano decently, ha! :-) I'll need to get a lavallier mic, or record audio afterwards :-) I'll definitely speak about the melodic patterns (and give examples as you rightly suggested!) and harmonic circles soon. Cadences are of course a great topic, but I'll need to refine thought to avoid "Just do I-VI-V-I and throw some weird intervals in there to break up the boring chords" :-) Finally, the bass line patterns are a great idea too, there are a few very easy ones that definitely help with impro, but I always implicitly imagined that they would bore people. But like much in life, the best tricks are the most dumb, because no-one can believe the trick could that simple ;-D

Great to know! Thank you :-) Next time I'll record my voice with an exernal mic to see how it goes ;-)

Merci pour le commentaire! Bien sur que c'est possible! Je dirai même que le violon permet de travailler quelque chose souvent moins primaire au piano -> Se concentrer sur *une* mélodie/voix. Par exemple, c'est un excellent exercice d'essayer d'improviser une mélodie (au piano ou violon!) en essayant de tout "entendre" pour soi dans son esprit. Ensuite, pour moi les bases de l'impro peuvent être en peu différentes de celles de l'harmonie ou du piano classique. Je pense que les techniques typiquement enseignées en conservatoire/dans la plupart des livres ne sont pas forcement idéales pour l'impro (trop lentes pour calculer en temps réel !). C'est pourquoi je recommande de se concentrer sur la pratique de l'impro elle même, mais en se concentrant sur l'essentiel (comme le rhythme, ou les mélodies, voir kzfaq.info/sun/PLW114-cg0_JSFLf8Ju58pQbvAYSbajzf5 ). Bien sur, toutes "bases" comme harmonie/gammes/ou techniques physiques au piano aident mais de sont que des "armes" disponibles en plus. Dire que l'on ne peut improviser qu'en connaissant parfaitement l'harmonie serait comme affirmer que l'on ne peut que improviser sur une guitare avec exactement 12 cordes en boyau de chat. On peut aussi improviser en frappant 2 pierres et chanter. (Ou sur un ipad! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/htJoh7eA25uzfJc.html un peu dur de faire glisser les truc en temps réel, mais ça fini par marcher ;-) Le plus important est de commencer a improviser sans avoir peur, et de le faire parce que c'est tellement amusant!

@@Borogrove merci pour ta réponse, tu me rassures beaucoup ! J'ai déjà essayé d'improviser au violon (en bon fan de jazz), mais avec ma formation classique j'ai très eu des "blocages", ça m'a un peu découragé... Je pense que je vais me plonger dans tes vidéos !! Je te tiens au courant, professeur !

If you mean Fux-style species counterpoint, I actually quite like the idea; Keep in mind that theory is never perfect, and is there to help people organize their thoughts or have new ones rather than encode some form of "absolute truth". The reason I like species counterpoint is because It's inherently based around rhythm which I'm a big fan of as primary object of interest in music. I'd definitely recommend looking a bit into what Fux says; You can also take a piece you like (ex. Bach, or Jazz with polyrhythms) and try to find a good "contrapuntal" sounding part. More often than not, you'll find that they use quite interesting rhythms. Also, in studying species counterpoint it's important to look at the effect produced from switching from one species to another, a bit like a gearbox on a car :-)

(in the video about Bach’s improvisation of course)

Great question! I'll try to share some tips on exactly this topic soon; Harmonic circles (very often raw fifths, but could be slightly different) are very useful to (1) modulate to another key/mode and (2) "chillout" whilst improvising to gather your thoughts/rest. Also, a critical thing is that you really have to "clothe" the harmonic circle in melodies or interesting patterns/rhythms to avoid it sounding too much like a "cheap" harmonic circle. I'll try to share *concrete* small examples that can be used as-is or easily modified as someone very judiciously suggested to me! Thanks for the question :-) !

@@Borogrove such video would be very helpful, for example although I know how to more or less modulate through the circle of fifths, I always struggle with finding nice, matching baroque or at least good sounding melody

Hey Eric! I’ll definitely give a listen to your opera! Sadly I don’t know Spanish 😬, but I’ll do my best :] and my congratulations again for finishing such a big piece of work!

@@Borogrove thanks, I just wrote Christmas Dance it's a short 'perfect' piece, it's on my real piano which has no action I cant do trills on it for example but it's good for writing on

Bonjour! Ces mini exos ne sont que pour faire les muscles des doigts, pour ne pas s’inquiéter trop de problèmes techniques quand on improvise. Ce ne sont certainement pas la première chose a faire lorsque l'on veut improviser :-) L'harmonie et les divers règles de contrepoint sont très intéressantes pour l'improvisation mais je pense qu'il y a quelque chose d'encore plus fondamental qui est de travailler les poly-rythmes *avant* le contrepoint, ce qui est ce que je voulais souligner dans ma video ( kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fbFzorqdp9vZfYk.html ). Je voulais souligner ceci parce que peu de gens en parlent, alors qu'il y a plus de vidéos sur l'harmonie :-) De plus, les diverses règles théoriques de l'harmonie classique sont aptes a un utilisation postérieure (analyse) ou pendant la composition. En revanche, pendant l'improvisation il est plus difficile voir limitant de garder une masse de règles a l'esprit. Ceci dit, je pense essayer de parler de divers règles harmoniques et contrapuntales dans le futur qui restent très utiles et intéressantes. Merci beaucoup pour le commentaire! (Et bien entendu, il ne s'agit que de mon opinion; Je ne prétend pas avoir une approche "correcte" or même supérieure pour l'improvisation; mais juste celle qui est la mienne :-)

@@Borogrove merci pour ta réponse rapide hâte d'en apprendre plus sur le contrepoint