Improvisation and practice tips
With
Tim RichardsTim Richards shares how to weave ideas you've already learned into your blues solos, and which course backing tracks to practise improvising over.
What's in the course
17 lessons (0h 34m) · 1 free
Lesson transcript
Music Lesson Insights: Improvisation Tips
You may have noticed in my solo in the middle of that piece that I quoted from things we've learned previously.
For instance:
- Riff Blues ideas from Jump Shuffle.
So, in your solo, this is your opportunity to show that you've assimilated these concepts and to use them flexibly. Like I was combining several ideas from different pieces in the same 12-bar improvisation.
Practice Opportunities
In the book, you've got the opportunity to play along with the CD tracks. In particular:
- Barrelhouse Blues has a section in the middle with just the left hand, so you could use that to play along as well.
- You could also use my demonstration of the off-on-on-off chord pattern that I did earlier when I played that around the whole 12-bar.
As well as learning to do that, you could just use it as a backing track for your own right-hand improvisations.
Have fun!
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Meet your guru
Meet your guru
Critically acclaimed jazz pianist and composer Tim Richards is one of Britain’s most experienced jazz educators, teaching piano privately for over 30 years, as well as at Morley College, Goldsmiths College, the University of Surrey, Premises Studios and other venues in the UK and abroad. He has produced numerous titles for Schott Music, including the best-selling two-volume Exploring Jazz Piano, Blues, Boogie & Gospel Collection and the acclaimed Improvising Blues Piano. He is also co-author, with John Crawford, of Exploring Latin Piano and Brazilian Piano Collection.
More recently Schott have published Jazz, Latin & Modern Collection (15 pieces for solo piano), comprising Tim Richards originals alongside pieces by Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, and the two volume set Beginning Jazz Piano (now a two-part MusicGurus course).
“The real joy of Tim’s music… is that it is both hugely educational but also such great fun to play. Anyone with the slightest interest in learning to play or teach jazz piano should really acquire a set of Tim’s books.” PianoDao
As a performer Tim has been a presence on the UK jazz scene since the 1980s, also playing the blues with UK and US legends such as Otis Grand, Earl Green, Dana Gillespie, Larry Garner, Joe Louis Walker and Mojo Buford. He has released over a dozen albums as a leader (featuring many of London’s best jazz musicians including Pete King, Gilad Atzmon, Tony Kofi, Jason Yarde, Seb Rochford, Ed Jones, Dick Pearce and many others), and toured all over Europe with line-ups ranging from duo to nine-piece. His latest recording, the album ‘Telegraph Hill’ by the six-piece Hextet, was described in The Observer as "A true joy from beginning to end".
More info can be found on his website www.timrichards.ndo.co.uk
