Paula’s news
08/27/2021 5:30 AM, By Katharina Köhler – Print the article Send email
Some musicians spontaneously invent new melodies. Then you say to it: “You are improvising on your instrument.” But how do they actually do it?
Anyone who makes music with an instrument often plays melodies according to written notes. But sometimes musicians just go ahead and play. They have their own word for this: improvise.
“Improvising simply means inventing something in music that you like,” says the expert Claus Rückbeil. Those who improvise do it without preparation. Instead of thinking big, you play from the moment. If nobody records the music or writes down the notes, it only stays for the moment. “Then it disappeared, the next time it is new again,” says the specialist.
But simply playing wild notes often sounds weird and crooked. So improvising has to be learned too. Really good musicians can do that. With a little practice this free playing without notes can sound really great and be a lot of fun.
Lina and Florian play the saxophone in a big band. The two are twelve years old and are in the seventh and sixth grades. They also improvise.
Florian explains that he often feels like he is in another world: “There you only focus on improvising and you don’t care about anything else. When that happens, the most beautiful solos often come about. ”Solo means that Florian plays part of the piece of music alone, without the accompaniment of other instruments.
People who improvise really well are often very familiar with music and its context. For example, they know which notes sound good together. But you can also just try out improvising. A few tricks help to make this work. Claus Rückbeil explains that you don’t have to constantly come up with something new. You can also repeat something that you have just played and change it slightly. When improvising, it is also allowed to learn something, the expert believes. If you hear something from other musicians that you think is beautiful, you can take that as an example.
What if it still sounds weird in spite of everything? No problem, it even happens to professionals. “Sometimes I play really wrong, but I hope you don’t notice that,” says Lina and laughs.
Lina has another tip: she lets a drum set play in the background while she practices on her saxophone. Such recordings can easily be found on the Internet. The drums help her stay in time while playing. If you know a little about music, you can choose a scale and improvise with its notes, says Lina. “And then let the sounds run free.”
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