LET'S IMPROVISE! by Mark F. Lester
A little book aimed mainly at piano teachers (or advanced students) about including improvisation in lessons - including (and especially) the very first lesson.
£0.00
'let's improvise!'
I've always liked making up my own music at the piano. When I did the CT ABRSM course (a course for music teachers who are already teaching) many years ago, we had a session on improvisation, and I was surprised that out of at least ten piano teachers there, only one other was at all comfortable with doing it.
It may well be different now, but I realised that, at least then, improvising had played absolutely no part in the training of piano teachers by traditional methods. That seemed to me a pity. I experimented with encouraging my own pupils to improvise, mainly by playing accompaniments for them to play over, following certain very simple rules. I found that the great majority (not all) pupils really enjoyed this, and over the years developed it into this little book. It's mainly for other teachers who want some ideas about how to include improvisation in their lessons, but might also be useful for more advanced students, and players generally.
Improvising isn't just enjoyable for its own sake, though that's a valid reason for doing it. By following simple rules (which get a little less simple as you go on), and playing in a duet, the student can develop listening skills, technique and theory as well as creativity.
Of course there are lots of books about improvisation, but they are nearly all about jazz. That's great, but improvisation needn't be restricted to jazz idioms or methods. More importantly perhaps, those books tend to start at the opposite end from where I start: they require you to be a reasonably experienced player and have quite a bit of theory knowledge at the start. My approach is the opposite: you learn the theory and technique (or a bit of it anyway) by doing.
I include it in the very first lesson for a beginner. I play an accompaniment; the only rule is that they can only play the black keys.
LET'S IMPROVISE - which you can download below - is a collection of my accompaniments, with plenty of tips and suggestions to the teacher and the student. Because it's still rather a 'beta' product, I haven't set a price; you can download it for free, but of course whatever payment you feel appropriate (after trying it out, if you like) would be very welcome! As would your feedback.