Improvise for Real will teach you how to play your OWN music. Maybe you dream of improvising your own solos in concerts and jam sessions. Or maybe you imagine yourself jamming with friends at parties and playing any song by ear effortlessly. Maybe you would love to compose your own music someday. You can be doing all of these things much sooner than you think! All you need is a simple understanding of how music really works and how to connect with your own musical creativity.
These abilities don't come from memorizing other people's "licks" or studying music theory on paper. What you need is a deeper understanding of music that enables you to connect your ear with your instrument. In other words, what you really need is a creative daily practice that lets you understand music from the inside out, and truly create your
own music.
Improvise for Real will take you into this beautiful world of sounds and show you how music and harmony really work. You'll learn to understand the sounds in the music all around you. And you'll learn to express your own musical ideas exactly as you hear them in your mind.
How is Improvise for Real different from other approaches?
A true understanding of harmony. The biggest problem that beginning improvisers have with expressing themselves creatively is that they are trying to apply licks and scales to isolated chords, but this isn't how music works at all. When you listen to your favorite songs, what you hear is a lovely interplay of notes and chords on a single musical landscape. With Improvise for Real you will learn to see this musical landscape and weave your own melodies effortlessly through the chords.
Creativity right from the start. In every other art form (painting, poetry, etc.) students get to experience the creative process as a natural part of their learning. It's only in music that this creative process remains shrouded in mystery. Improvise for Real is changing all of that. We believe that your own creative exploration of the sounds is essential. With Improvise for Real you will be improvising and expressing your own musical ideas right from the very first day. This is true whether you're learning from the book or using our step-by-step video courses tailored for your instrument.
Connection to the ear. Improvise for Real will show you how to connect your ear to your instrument. For each new harmonic situation that you learn, you'll explore the sounds creatively and you'll learn to HEAR these sounds in the music all around you. The result is a deep personal understanding of harmony that allows you to recognize melodies and chord progressions by ear and to play the sounds you imagine.
Music as a journey. We believe that musical improvisation is the most beautiful art form in the world, and we want to help you enjoy this amazing art form for the rest of your life. What we teach is a journey through the entire world of modern harmony. But it's also a journey of your own personal growth as an artist. And so every step of the way, you'll be discovering your OWN musical voice and growing in your ability to tell powerful musical stories on your instrument.
There are many supporting resources at the Improvise for Real website and I encourage you to check those out before deciding to buy this book. You'll find a complete series of backing tracks to accompany your improvising as you progress through the world of harmony. And you'll find many surprising and enjoyable activities like our "Sing the Numbers" ear training course designed just for improvisers. Come check us out and see if our learning environment is appealing to you!
David Reed's mission is to teach all people how to connect with their own musical creativity and enjoy improvising and composing their own music. While his own musical background is primarily in jazz music, his approach to teaching improvisation is universal and applies to all styles of music.
During his early years of teaching musical improvisation for all instruments, David became increasingly frustrated with the clichés and formulas that are commonly taught in improvisation courses. He felt that these rules and formulas were forcing students into a very superficial relationship with improvising, and this often caused them more harm than good.
He began to imagine a different kind of improvisation method that would enable students to explore and discover the beautiful world of modern harmony for themselves. For more than 10 years David worked to develop a complete method that would give musicians this direct, personal experience with each sound in our musical system, taking students directly to the same understanding of harmony that is enjoyed by every great improviser.
The method is called Improvise for Real (IFR), and it is fast on its way to becoming the definitive system for learning to improvise. It is now being used by both students and teachers in more than 20 countries. David also provides jam tracks and other learning materials to support the entire IFR community. You can learn more at www.ImproviseForReal.com.
David is currently located in Andorra. His primary instrument is the nylon string guitar. He also enjoys playing both the trumpet and the piano. A musician for more than 30 years, his unique perspective on music and creativity is based on his experiences playing and teaching music in Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Nicaragua and the United States.
