Improvise for Real is about much more than learning to improvise. It's about truly understanding music and being able to enjoy creating it yourself. Maybe you dream of improvising your own solos in concerts and jam sessions. Or maybe you imagine yourself playing songs with friends at parties and expressing yourself with total confidence. Maybe you have ideas for songs and you would love to compose your own music. 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 better harmony model. 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 and effortless interplay of melody and harmony on a single musical landscape where everything is connected. 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, the exclusive domain of ancient "composers" and the occasional child prodigy. 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.
Connection to the ear. We don't teach isolated fragments of music theory or random ear training exercises. Improvise for Real is an integrated music practice that combines creativity, ear training and harmony knowledge every step of the way. For each new harmonic situation that you learn, you'll spend lots of time exploring the sounds yourself improvising over our backing tracks, and you'll even sing the sounds with your voice as part of truly mastering them. The result is a deep personal relationship with harmony that allows you to understand music by ear and to play the sounds you imagine.
Music as a journey. We don't teach licks and formulas to help you try to sound like a pro overnight. We believe that musical improvisation is the most beautiful art form in the world, and we want to help you enjoy this art form for the rest of your life. What we teach is a journey that leads you through the world of modern harmony. But it's also a journey of your own personal growth as a creative musical artist. And so every step of the way, you'll be expressing yourself creatively and growing in your own ability to tell powerful musical stories on your instrument.
About the Author: 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.
