Jazz Piano Improvisation: If You Want to Be Creative, Practice Creativity (Our Love Is Here to Stay)
What if the reason you're struggling to improvise isn't that you don't know enough?
What if you already have more than enough musical information to begin creating?
Think about it.
You've studied scales. You've learned modes. You've practiced chord changes, memorized licks, worked through transcriptions, and spent countless hours trying to understand what great jazz musicians play.
And yet, when it's time to improvise, you still find yourself wondering:
What am I supposed to play?
Perhaps the answer isn't another scale, another lick, or another transcription.
Perhaps it's time to develop greater command of the musical material you already have.
This week, as we continue our study of George and Ira Gershwin's Our Love Is Here to Stay, we're going to explore a surprisingly simple approach to improvisation.
We're going to make it smaller.
Much smaller.
And in doing so, we're going to begin developing one of the most important skills required for improvisation:
👉 The ability to make musical decisions.
How Do We Actually Learn Jazz?
Over the past two weeks, we've been exploring an important question: How do we actually learn jazz?
We've discussed the importance of listening to the masters, studying their recordings, transcribing their solos, and learning from their extraordinary musicianship.
Last week, we asked whether imitation is the same as understanding.
This week, we're taking that conversation one step further.
When we study a transcription, what exactly are we trying to discover?
Suppose I'm studying a Bill Evans transcription.
Am I simply trying to reproduce everything Bill played?
Not necessarily.
In fact, I may not possess anywhere near the technical ability required to reproduce some of his performances.
But that doesn't mean I can't learn something tremendously valuable from studying his music.
I can ask how he approaches major, minor, and dominant sounds. I can examine his melodic direction, identify his target notes, study his chromaticism, and explore how he organizes rhythm.
Instead of asking only, "What did Bill Evans play?" I begin asking:
"What can I discover by studying what Bill Evans played?"
That's a very different educational objective.
And it leads us to something rather interesting.
Look Through the Notes. Discover the Process.
Oscar Peterson doesn't sound like Bill Evans.
Bill Evans doesn't sound like Chick Corea.
And Chick Corea doesn't sound like Keith Jarrett.
Each developed a distinctive musical voice.
Yet when we look beneath their individual musical expressions, certain fundamental relationships continually appear.
Melodies outline harmony. Melodies move up and down. That movement is constructed primarily from scales and arpeggios, which can then be decorated with chromaticism.
Sound familiar?
These are the same musical relationships we explore week after week at Jazz Piano Skills.
And that raises an important question.
Once we recognize that great improvisers continually use ascending and descending scale and arpeggio motion, shouldn't we develop the ability to execute that movement ourselves?
Before worrying about chromatic approaches, shouldn't we become comfortable moving through the chord tones?
Before practicing elaborate enclosures, shouldn't we have command of the arpeggios we're trying to enclose?
👉 Study the product to discover the process. Then develop the process so you can begin producing a product of your own.
That's how studying the masters becomes something more than collecting their musical ideas.
It becomes an opportunity to develop our own musicianship.
You Have to Bake a Cake Before You Decorate It
I love chromaticism.
I love altered tensions, enclosures, extensions, and all those wonderful sounds we associate with jazz improvisation.
But sometimes, in jazz education, we become so excited about the icing that we forget about the cake. And you can't decorate a cake you haven't baked! And if the cake itself isn't very good, adding more icing won't solve the problem.
The same principle applies to improvisation.
If you're uncomfortable navigating the basic chord tones, adding more scales, modes, and chromatic devices may simply create more information to manage.
Before decorating melodic movement, develop command of the movement itself.
Before adding tension, understand the harmonic sound against which you're creating that tension. Before expanding your musical choices, become comfortable with the choices you already have.
This isn't an argument against studying advanced harmonic and melodic concepts.
It's an argument for developing the fundamentals that make those concepts musically useful.
Bake the cake. Then decorate it.
Jazz Piano Improvisation Begins With Musical Decisions
Jazz piano improvisation is not simply about knowing which notes are available. It's about developing the musical understanding and physical command necessary to make creative decisions with those notes.
We sometimes treat creativity as though it's a mysterious gift.
Some musicians have it. Others don't.
But what if creativity is something we can deliberately practice?
Improvisation requires musical decisions. And if musical decision-making is a skill, we can create practice environments that help us develop it.
Imagine sitting down at the piano and giving yourself every musical possibility imaginable.
Every scale.
Every mode.
Every chord tone.
Every chromatic approach.
Every rhythmic possibility.
Now, be creative!
For a developing musician, that isn't necessarily freedom. It can be overwhelming.
Instead, what if we intentionally limit our choices?
Suppose we allow ourselves to use only the four chord tones of a dominant seventh chord.
Now we have some manageable decisions to make.
Where should I begin? Should I move up or down? When should I change direction? How should I organize the rhythm? When should I play, and when should I leave space?
Notice what's happening.
I'm no longer simply reproducing somebody else's musical decisions.
I'm beginning to make my own.
They may be small decisions, but they're my decisions.
👉 Creativity is spawned from limitation, not excess.
The limitation doesn't prevent creativity. It creates an environment in which creativity becomes manageable and something we can actually practice.
Four Notes. More Possibilities Than You Think.
For this week's improvisation study, we're deliberately limiting our melodic material to chord tones.
No chromatic approaches.
No enclosures.
No altered tensions.
No collection of memorized licks.
Just ascending and descending arpeggio motion.
And we're going to begin with the very first chord in our rendition of Our Love Is Here to Stay: G7.
Our starting point: G7
Four chord tones. Four possible entry points.
G
Root
B
Third
D
Fifth
F
Seventh
Our task isn't simply to identify these notes. It's to develop enough physical command to enter the sound from any chord tone and move confidently in either direction.
See the Harmony Before You Play the Melody
Before turning G7 into melodic movement, explore it harmonically.
Begin with four entry points: the root, third, fifth, and seventh.
From each entry point, practice ascending and descending through the harmonic shape.
Rather than thinking exclusively in academic terms such as root position and inversions, we're approaching these shapes from a practical perspective.
Can I see the sound?
Can I enter it from the third?
Can I move downward from the fifth?
Can I recognize the seventh as my starting point without having to calculate where it is?
We want these harmonic shapes to become physically familiar.
Because melody flows from harmony.
And once we can see and play the harmony, we're ready to express that same information melodically.
Turn the Harmony Into Melody
Now, take those same G7 chord tones and release them horizontally through time.
In other words, we're turning our harmonic shapes into ascending and descending arpeggios.
Same notes. Same sound. Two different musical presentations.
One chord, eight movements
Four entry points, each explored in both directions.
Entry point | Ascending | Descending |
Root (G) | G – B – D – F | G – F – D – B |
Third (B) | B – D – F – G | B – G – F – D |
Fifth (D) | D – F – G – B | D – B – G – F |
Seventh (F) | F – G – B – D | F – D – B – G |
Illustrative four-note arpeggio movements. Practice each entry point in a comfortable register, then explore additional octaves.
Here's an important detail: when practicing ascending and descending movement, return to the exact same entry note.
If you begin ascending from a particular G, return to that same G before descending.
Don't simply grab whichever G happens to be nearby.
We want to develop a precise awareness of our starting point and the ability to travel confidently in either direction.
This is how harmonic knowledge begins becoming physical command.
And once that command develops, those four notes start becoming something much more interesting.
They become musical possibilities.
From Practicing Ingredients to Practicing Improvisation
Of course, practicing ascending and descending arpeggios isn't the same as improvising.
It's preparation.
The next step is to use those movements to make music.
That's precisely what we're doing this week with Our Love Is Here to Stay.
Once we've developed our G7 harmonic shapes and melodic movement, apply the same process to the remaining chords in the tune.
Then, begin improvising through the changes using chord tones only.
And now the real decision-making begins.
Which chord tone should I start on?
Should I ascend or descend?
Should I continue in the same direction or change direction?
How can I shape the movement rhythmically?
How can I connect one harmonic sound to the next?
When should I play?
When should I remain silent?
There isn't one predetermined answer to these questions.
That's the point!
We're creating opportunities to make musical decisions, listen to the results, and respond with another decision.
👉 We're no longer simply practicing what to play. We're practicing how to create.
What About Chord-Scale Relationships?
This week's Question of the Week came from Dawn in Scottsdale, Arizona, who asked about the chord-scale approach to improvisation.
After spending years studying scales and modes, she still finds herself uncertain about what to do with that information when it's time to improvise.
It's an excellent question.
And chord-scale relationships are absolutely worth understanding. They help us recognize where chords originate, how they function within a key, and how scale tones relate to harmonic sounds.
But before worrying about which scale or mode belongs to a chord, I would ask something simpler.
Can you comfortably play the chord itself?
If I give you G7, can you move through its chord tones ascending and descending?
Can you begin from the root, third, fifth, or seventh?
Can you do that without stopping to calculate or search for the notes?
If not, adding an entire scale may simply increase the number of choices you're trying to manage.
My suggestion is to develop command of the harmonic sound first.
Then, when we introduce scale motion, chromatic approaches, and tension, we're adding those possibilities to an established foundation.
We're decorating a cake that's already been baked.
Your Practice Challenge
This week, take the G7 process we've explored and apply it to every remaining chord in our rendition of Our Love Is Here to Stay.
Begin by identifying the root, third, fifth, and seventh of each chord.
Practice the harmonic shapes ascending and descending from all four entry points. Then convert those shapes into melodic movement using the same entry points.
Start at a comfortable tempo. Our lesson uses 85 BPM, but the goal isn't speed. It's developing enough command to navigate the sound without hesitation.
As your physical command improves, experiment with different tempos.
Then put the changes to Our Love Is Here to Stay in front of you and begin creating short improvised phrases using only chord tones.
Limit yourself deliberately.
Don't add chromaticism.
Don't add enclosures.
Don't reach for another scale or lick.
Instead, explore what you can create by changing direction, choosing different entry points, experimenting with rhythm, and leaving space.
And as you practice, ask yourself:
Am I practicing improvisation, or am I simply practicing the ingredients of improvisation?
If You Want Creative Freedom, Develop Musical Command
There's another important distinction worth considering.
We often assume that more information will automatically produce more musical freedom.
More scales.
More modes.
More licks.
More possibilities.
But more information doesn't always produce more freedom.
Sometimes more information simply produces more information.
Freedom begins developing when understanding becomes physical.
When you can see the harmonic shape.
When your hands recognize the sound.
When you can navigate that sound from different entry points without searching, calculating, or guessing.
Now you have something you can work with.
And once you have something you can work with, you can begin making your own musical decisions.
That's when an important shift occurs.
We move from asking:
"What am I supposed to play?"
To asking:
"What do I want to do?"
The first question is looking for an answer.
The second requires a decision.
👉 Improvisation lives in that second question.
Final Thought
Think about the journey we've been taking this month.
We began with harmony, learning to recognize the relationships that organize Our Love Is Here to Stay.
Then we explored melody, developing a process that allows us not simply to memorize melodic information but to understand and reconstruct it.
And now we're using that understanding to create.
Harmony becomes melody.
Melody becomes choice.
Choice becomes creativity.
That's an educational progression worth developing.
Because ultimately, we're not studying jazz so we can spend the rest of our musical lives reproducing somebody else's decisions.
Oscar Peterson already made Oscar Peterson's decisions.
Bill Evans made Bill Evans' decisions.
Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett made theirs.
And thank goodness they did. We can spend a lifetime learning from them.
But eventually, we have to walk away from the transcription, sit down at our own piano, and begin making decisions of our own.
And we don't need a thousand musical possibilities to begin.
Four chord tones will do just fine.
If you want to be creative, practice creativity.
If you want creative freedom, develop musical command.
Next week, we'll complete our month-long study of Our Love Is Here to Stay with solo piano, bringing together the harmony, melody, and improvisation skills we've been developing throughout the month.
Until then, remember:
Command before complexity.
And don't forget to bake the cake before you decorate it.
Discover • Learn • Play
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Warm Regards, Dr. Bob Lawrence
Jazz Piano Skills
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