Improvisation with Mary Had a Little Lamb

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman and in this lesson we're going to learn some techniques for improvising with "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Let's come over to the piano to get started. Here I have our E major pentascale which we'll be using to improvise today, but we're going to make some slight modifications. We're not going to use FA. It just will sound better to leave that one out for this improvisation, and I thought it would be fun to add in kind of a bonus note that would also sound fun in this improvisation, and it's this note a skip below DO, which is called LA We have DO RE MI RE DO LA DO And you'll find that that note might sound pretty fun in this improvisation. Now you're wondering, how will I play that note? Because you don't have a finger on it, well that's okay. As we get to more advanced music, we're going to do some shifts that allow you to play notes that are outside of the pentascale. So you'll notice you can have just your regular position for DO RE MI and SO, but if you want to do LA, I would leave your thumb, your finger 1 as an anchor on DO and your finger 2 can just glide over to play that C-sharp and then when you're done with it your fingers can just come back to where they were before. DO RE MI RE DO LA DO. Why don't you try that on your own piano. place your finger 1 on E and let your other fingers find the E major pentascale, and try playing DO RE MI RE DO LA DO Now you try. Good, now if that's uncomfortable you don't have to use that note. Remember, this is an improvisation so you're making up the music there's no right or wrong. So I'm just showing you some options basically, and for improvising we're going to put on our creative hat and make up any words we want. Like it doesn't have to be 'Mary had a little lamb' we could be like, ♫Mary had a dinosaur♫ or ♫Mary was late to school one day♫ ♫school one day, school one day♫ I'm just making up anything that pops into my head. It doesn't have to be about Mary at all. You could do it about your favorite color. ♫I like red, I like red, yeah I like red, a whole lot♫ Whatever you want. You could talk about your favorite food or your pet that's so cute, Whatever you want is okay. I just want you to get comfortable taking these notes DO RE MI and SO and then this bonus note LA, and mess around with it. So pause the video and just make up some words. It can be silly, it could be serious, whatever, and practice improvising with those notes. Then press play to go on. Now I'd like to try with you something that I call an improvisation conversation. When we have an improvisation conversation it means we're going to be improvising together just like we're in a conversation with each other. Now what makes for a good conversation? When you have a conversation with someone you're listening to each other, and you're taking turns talking. You both can't be talking at the same time. Just like when we improvise together, we'll take turns improvising. Now also when you're in a conversation, if someone asks, hey what did you have for breakfast? And you say, Wednesday, well that answer doesn't really make sense, right? We have to listen and make our answers make sense. If I say, what did you have for breakfast? You'd say, waffles. Right? So the same is true for music. We're going to listen, take turns, and try to make our notes sound like they're part of a conversation. We don't copy each other. We don't have to say the exact same thing, right? We're going to be playing different things but responding to each other. So let's try a conversation on the piano. Go ahead and place your right hand in the E major pentascale. Both being in the same pentascale makes it so we're having a conversation about the same thing. Like if I'm playing in C major and you're playing an E major, it's kind of going to sound like we're talking about two totally different things. So in our conversation if I play something like this: Then you will want to answer in some way that kind of makes sense with that. Like you might go: Did you hear how that answer kind of had a similar rhythm and a similar style, but it was different. I wasn't just copying it. Again, there is no right or wrong. You're not copying, you're just responding. You're listening and having a conversation. Okay? So let's start our conversation. I'll play something to start us off, and then you take a turn to play something back, and we'll just take turns for a little bit. My turn first. Your turn. Your turn. Again, don't worry about a right or a wrong we're just talking to each other. There's nothing right or wrong you can say in a conversation, where we're just hanging out and talking. Your turn. Your turn. Great! Now feel free to rewind and try that again if you like, or find a friend maybe a family member, and try having a conversation with them on your piano. One person can put a hand down low, one can put it up high, and just practice talking to each other and see if you can make your notes sound like they're having a conversation. Now let's try some improvising where I'm going to play an accompaniment pattern like this: Basically what I'm doing is I'm just taking the I chord and I'm doing the notes one at a time DO MI SO, and th ...