Taking apart a specific genre or traditional style of music and putting

it back together is a great way to understand it. In this episode, I'll

give you 2 examples of how to do that and then improvise with the

elements.

Find out more about membership at vibrantmusicteaching.com.

This is the vibrant music teaching podcast.

I'm Nicola Canton.

And today we're talking about improvising our way around the world.

Welcome back.

Beautiful teachers.

The article we're publishing this week on the blog is called sampling

salsa through piano improvisation.

It's my Rachel Palm and I thoroughly suggest you check it out.

Inspired by Rachel's post.

I thought we would dive a bit deeper into one of the ideas I kind of touch

upon last week in last week's episode.

So last week we talked about finding music from different places,

from different styles, finding music that's off our beaten path.

And one of the ideas I talked about with that is taking the music and

dissecting the components on either composing something or improvising

with those components, figuring out what the underlying structures are.

What scales it's made up of what rhythm patterns are common, that kind of thing.

Now in this episode, we're going to dive much deeper into that one idea of

improvising based on the music you find.

As we mentioned last week, sometimes you can find arrangements and that's

definitely most of our comfort zone.

Right.

That we.

Are used to reading music, someone else arranging it for us or us writing it down

ourselves, maybe even much more so than letting go of the page in front of us.

And even if we're used to improvising is probably in those

more classical styles, maybe jazz styles, maybe contemporary kind of.

Film music.

Uh, or minimalist kind of music, but not as much in different traditional

musics from around the world.

So, if we want to improvise with a style of music, we need to

first understand the components.

What rhythmic patterns are common in this music?

What scales or modes does it use most commonly, if any.

Um, maybe it doesn't have, maybe that's not part of its signature, but.

You need to unpack what is.

Many of, you will know that I've done a bit of dancing a my time.

And I like to think of this like that.

If you were to dance, say.

Uh, walls.

A Viennese waltz.

Let's be more specific, right?

If you were to dance a Viennese waltz, not my specialty.

So excuse me.

If I get something wrong.

But there would be certain characteristic moves in that there would be the

basic waltzing pattern that has done.

There would be certain ways that you hold your head.

If you're the lady or the mine.

Um, Depending on whether you're leading or following that kind of thing.

And there's little specific signature moves.

Like I think the Flexeril belongs in the Viennese waltz.

So that is just a loose recipe, a set of ingredients.

With that you can bake any kind of VNS walls.

Right.

There's not one way to do it.

That's right.

It's something that.

Has characteristics.

And components.

But it's not one set of cardiography.

The cardiography.

This specific choreography is like one of our pieces.

So we try and unpack music in that way.

I think we can understand more broad styles than we do currently,

because much of it is not notated.

Or when it is, that's a re-interpretation by someone from the Western tradition.

Uh, rewriting their own version of it, but the original trad

music was not formed in notation.

And so.

There are some things that won't be picked up in those pieces.

When you do understand those components, you can start to split up

the different ideas that are involved.

And make them into smaller components, make them into.

Bits and pieces that you could slot together somehow.

And in Rachel's example, article, which is a great way to look at it.

She's looking at salsa specifically.

And she suggests using one to two of these ideas for a mild or beginner version.

Three to four for a medium or intermediate version and five to

six for a hot or advanced version.

So I love this way of looking at it because the more of these things you

try to include, the more it's going to say, like that original style.

In most cases, of course you can never overdo it, but in most

cases, the more it's going to sound like that original style.

And the more advanced it's going to become, right?

Because you're going to have to split these things up.

In your two hon band as Bradley.

So I should call it.

In your piano version of music that is often played by several instruments.

So Rachel applies this to salsa and we're going to start there and

then I'll give you another example.

In herself, examples.

She gives some rhythms that are common, which is great because seeing

them written out is obviously much more easy for us to understand.

And for some of our students as well, although you may like to do

it with your students or early.

So the first rhythm she gives us is in, could I syllabus.

Elbows, I would call it tem T Thai Thai.

Um, Uh, or in counting, that would be one too.

And three, four.

2 3, 4.

So it's the same or they're in twice.

The second rhythm she gives us is.

One two and three, four, and 1, 2, 3, and four.

Right.

So there's more dotted rhythm in there and we've got some quavers.

So it was a little bit more going on, but both of those are very accessible.

And could I, so Bose about that last rhythm would be tum tum

tum tee tee, tee, tee, tee.

So either one of those versions is great.

And depending on your student's level and the type of rhythm they're used to, or you

can translate that into Gordon rhythms or whatever you like to use in your studio.

The other element that Rachel takes out is these cord based,

um, broken cord sort of patterns.

And she really simplifies them down.

Now, if you listen to salsa music with your students, I've got a sense of how.

This is often a lot more Compex.

There's a lot more going on in the other hand, or there's full cords going

on sometimes and et cetera, et cetera.

But I like the simplified version she does.

And these are shown in notation in the article.

So I suggest you go check that out on the colorful keys blog.

If you're curious, it's not something that works super well in audio.

Of course.

So she's taking though those common, Rhythmic patterns and the common

broken chord or melody or whatever you want to call that those patterns, the

harmonic patterns really, and putting them together in different ways, that

would be very accessible to students.

If you have a student that can go much further.

Of course you should do that.

Now I wanted to give you another example here and I've chosen

Irish, traditional music.

We're actually talking about tried music a lot inside the membership right now,

because we've just released, arrange your folk, which is an adaptable set of.

Lesson plans for arranging any folk music.

It could be the folk music where you live right now.

It could be from your students' background, from your background, or

just chosen at random from the world.

It's a very flexible set of plans.

Throughout those plans I use.

Irish traditional music as a bit of an example.

But the plans are very loose and could be applied to any set

of songs or tunes you choose.

So I'll use Irish tribe as an example here as well.

I'm sure many of you will be familiar with Irish trad music or

at least roughly the sand of it.

Although, not the ins and outs.

It is of course what we use for our Irish dancing here, as well as other things, of

course, but it is used for Irish dancing.

So it's something I grew up listening to, but not playing.

So keep in mind that I'm not the expert and I don't come

from a tribe tradition and they wouldn't teach it this way at all.

So if you're interested in playing, I was driving.

You should get a real trial teacher, not me.

But we're going to take a simplified version.

Of something you might draw from our shot without that background.

That's what we're all about in this episode.

So, if you look up Irish, traditional music, you'll straight away come across

a Wikipedia page, which explains a few things about the history of it.

And a few of the characteristics such as the fact that it's generally modal.

And uses Ionian, Dorian Aeolian and Mixolydian the most commonly.

So that gives you some starting spot.

And I do think it's a great place to start talking about modes with your student.

If you haven't done that before.

And maybe exploring not Ionian or alien, but choosing one of the other two.

So we'll choose Dorian today just for fun.

Okay.

So it was going to be in Dorian mode.

And then we have a few characteristic dances and basically all the music is

based off these dance, rhythms and styles.

So there's jigs there's hornpipes there's reels.

Um, there's, mazurkas less commonly.

Different things like that.

We're going to go with a Jake.

'cause.

I like to get students into six eight when I can.

So there's a really common Jake pattern, which comes up in a lot of digs.

Now, keep in mind, if you listen to a real tribe player, play these, they will put in

embellishments, but the underlying melody.

Much like if you were to do a jazz standard, And there's that melody.

Right.

And if you listen, Too.

current jazz band, they will be straying way off that beaten path.

Tried music less so, but they do embellish and throw in the bits and pieces for

these common tunes that come up again.

And again, So a basic jig pattern or the start of one.

I would be in six eight, and it would go kind in six first

of all, just to make it clear.

So it goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 1 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

So that would be, I'm going to do it four ways.

That would be in UK terms.

That would be crotchet, quaver, quaver, quaver, quaver, crutch.

Sorry.

project quaver.

In American.

In north American.

That would be.

Quarter.

8 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 quarter.

Eighth.

I was slightly out of time there, but I hope you forgive me because

I'm trying to say all these different words and in condylar language, that

would be Ty T T T T T T T Thai tea.

Okay.

Hope that makes it clear.

At the end of the phrase, there is some more quavers usually thrown in, but.

To get even that basic rhythm will give you a feeling of a Jake.

In the left hand, then it's going to be pretty consistent or in many jigs, I'm

just taking this as, as a prototype.

And many jigs.

The left hand is going to pretty consistently do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Or Thai tea, Thai tea.

Or crotch it graver project.

Graver or quarter eighth, quarter eighth.

So it's just repeating itself in that, in that pattern.

Again, and again and again, but when you combine that with that right hand

pattern, obviously, um, the way they combined together is really interesting.

So I would have my student tap those out with both hands or play them

on just two notes on the piano.

And then they can start to understand the rhythm of how it fits together.

After that I would have them play the left-hand probably first while I

improvise the right hand so they can get a sense of how simple it could be.

You might like to have the notation written up on a piece of Cardo white,

a small whiteboard that you put on the stand, something like that.

So that they can track that the whole time.

And they're going to be then playing that left-hand in a basic pattern

or you play the left-hand and the basic pattern and they improvise.

And then when they're really ready, they can start to put those together.

But I would start by putting.

The left-hand back to being, just holding for the full bar.

And then the right hand is improvising.

Cause that's going to be quite challenging to coordinate, especially

for someone who's not used to improvising because they're thinking about what

the right hand is going to play.

And I think you've had the ride home rhythm.

If they do think about the left-hand rhythm as well,

that's going to be pretty tough.

So I would do it.

Teacher and student, student, and teacher writes a two different ways around,

and then if they're going to play, I would first try it with a simplified

left-hand that just holds a cord or holds a single note for the whole bar.

All of that.

We'll basically sound like a Jake now again.

As I said, I'm not a triad player.

Um, I just.

Dabble in understanding the style of music and mostly I danced to it.

So I know when it feels right.

But.

It does give you a sense of how you can come from the outside.

Cause that's essentially what I'm doing after just having listened to a good bit

of trad, I'm saying, okay, what are these rhythm patterns that are happening again?

And again, what's happening in terms of the harmony and how can

we remake that in our own way?

You're one thing this week is to pick a style.

Um, research the components of that style.

Pick at Rhonda more based on an interest of your own or a student.

Then come up with an improvisation pattern.

For just, you.

Or if it's going really well, try with a student right away.

I'm really looking forward to hearing how you get on and picking out your

improvisation style and making a new improv prompt for you and your students.

Do let me know how it goes.

You can find me on Instagram at colorful keys or in the vibrant music

studio teachers, Facebook group.

And I'm really looking forward to hearing how you go.

See you next week.

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