Speak the Language

[This is an essay I have submitted for our AGO chapter's newsletter. Much of the ground has been covered in various posts here at the Music Box, but I consider it worth posting here as a summary. For further reading, use the "Labels" function in the sidebar, looking for articles tagged with "improvisation." There are currently thirty-five of them.]


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Speak the Language

The first step toward improvisation is to Know the Tune.
The second step: Speak the Language.

This, in turn, has two parts: Grammar and Syntax.
And Grammar likewise falls into two divisions: Harmony and Counterpoint.

Harmony:
The best place to start is by harmonizing the scale. Both Dupré and Hancock in their books on improvisation begin with this [Marcel Dupré: “Complete Course in Organ Improvisation” (A. Leduc) and Gerre Hancock: “Improvisation” (Oxford)]. Following Dupré, I recommend starting with C major, in whole notes up and down, and a written harmonization. Do this carefully, with good voice leading. Play it at the organ or piano; memorize it. Transpose it into other keys – this will aid in the memorization. Sometimes, put the scale (still in the soprano) on a solo stop so that your accompanying voices are in the left hand and pedal.

When you can do this in all major keys, do it again, this time with the scale in the bass line, sometimes in the bottom voice of the left hand, and sometimes in the pedal. Again, all major keys. As time passes, begin to vary your harmonization. Become comfortable harmonizing the scale with a variety of chords, a variety of bass lines, differing numbers of voices.

Then, play the scale en taille, in the tenor. Play it with the left hand on a solo stop, accompanied by two higher voices on another manual and a bass line in the pedal. All major keys. This is important, for when you are in full improvisatory flight and you suddenly find yourself in B major, you will not panic, for you are as comfortable with five sharps as with one.

Then, the whole process repeats with the minor scale. To be thorough, work with all keys in both the natural and melodic minor forms, and with the scale in all three positions: soprano, tenor, bass. It is profitable to do some work in the modes as well, especially Dorian and Phrygian. Be patient, for this will probably take a long time to become comfortable. I was stuck at this stage for most of a year.

Hancock abbreviates this process quite a bit, and adds the suggestion of doing your harmonizations in a variety of styles, and with the scale varied rhythmically. Once you have developed a degree of facility with the basic slow scale, this is a good idea and will help you retain your sanity.

You need not avoid other improvisatory work; keep “Knowing the Tunes” and using the skills you already have to improvise on them, and of course keep playing literature and hymns and anthem accompaniments. The harmonizations of scales should run in parallel with your other organ work, and over time you will find that you are playing more comfortably, both in your improvisations and your written repertoire.

This work is never done. When you sit down to work on improvisation and find yourself devoid of ideas, harmonize scales. It will get your creativity started. Even in a “real” improvisation in a church service or concert, if you are stuck, throw in a scale passage. It will be something that is so comfortable for you that it will allow you to regain your bearings.

Beyond Scales:
The next step is to harmonize melodies. After all the work with scales, this will be straightforward. Again, experiment with the melody in the tenor and bass as well as the soprano, and work in a variety of keys. Dupré gives many sample melodies, mostly from plainsong, but you can find plenty of material in any hymnal. It is well to begin with melodies that are mostly stepwise, and to have just the melody before you, not a hymnal harmonization. If need be, write the melody on staff paper.

Another time-honored approach is Figured Bass. This will teach you to work from the “bottom up” as well as “top down,” and you can experiment with improvising melodies over the bass, staying in the harmonic structure indicated by the figures. Or, given a melody (let’s say, a vocal recitative with figured bass), make countermelodies or figurations that complement the melody.

This leads us to the other approach:

Counterpoint:
Most people begin with Harmony. Counterpoint would be an equally good place to start, for wherever you begin, one eventually leads to the other.

The best primer that I have seen for a contrapuntal approach to improvisation is a little book by Jan Bender, now out of print: “Organ Improvisation for Beginners” (Concordia, 1975), but you can do much of this work without Bender’s book. Start with a hymn tune in the soprano and play around with little “answers” to it in a lower voice. Maybe just little fillers at cadences, or something that imitates the tune, or maybe a bass line. “Play” is the operative word: do be playful in this work. Don’t worry if it is not up to the standard of JSB, and (at first) don’t worry about parallel fifths and suchlike; let your ear tell you what works and what doesn’t. And don’t, don’t, don’t add a third part! Not yet. Just melody and counterpoint.

Bender takes the student from here to the improvisation of a two-part chorale-based invention. If you are brave, see if you can imitate the Bach inventions, or the little Duets toward the end of the Clavierübung, or passages of two-part writing in the chorale preludes. Again, don’t feel that you must live up to his standard or create a full-scale piece – but do think about how he is working, how he is creating a second line that imitates the first, and note his economy of material. See if you can do that on a smaller scale, perhaps an eight-measure beginning for an invention, or if you will, the exposition of a two-voice fugue. For that is where you can take it, if you have the will and the time. Two voices, then three, four, five…

If you walk this path, you will soon find that you need a more structured approach, and for that, there is no better guide than the “Gradus ad Parnassum,” the famous text on Species Counterpoint by the master J. J. Fux. This (in its 1725 Latin edition) was the only theoretical book found in the library of J. S. Bach at his death. It was the book which Joseph Haydn used to teach himself composition, carefully working out every exercise, and then he used the book with his student Beethoven. An English translation by Alfred Mann (W. W. Norton, 1965) is readily available as an inexpensive paperback; the original Latin is freely available as a PDF at several places on the Internet. You can and should do the exercises in writing – but for our purposes, you should then go to the keyboard and see if you can improvise them. There is another book that takes this approach: “Organ,” by Arthur Wills (Schirmer Books), wherein the latter part of the book comprises a short course in improvisation, beginning with the Species Counterpoint. Inexpensive used copies appear to be readily available online.

I will confess that I never got beyond two-voice counterpoint – but I will also confess that this work was of great value to me.

Syntax:
Harmony and Counterpoint are the building blocks, the grammar. Syntax, or Musical Form, is the manner in which they are assembled into a coherent musical statement. Both Dupré and Hancock provide excellent leadership into this realm, with Dupré’s second volume preparing the student to improvise in the symphonic forms after the manner of Widor and Vierne.

One of Hancock’s suggestions is the imitation of what others have done. When you encounter a particularly fine piece of music, select a phrase from it and see if you can imitate it. As a beginning, you might simply transpose it so that you are no longer bound to the printed notes. Or you might take an eight-bar phrase and see if you can continue it into a sixteen-bar period, different from what the composer has written but continuing in the same style. It is better to create a short section of what could become a full composition and work with it, rather than immediately launching into a larger form – for example, see if you can extend your eight or sixteen bar fragment into the A section of a ternary (A-B-A) form.

Or you might take another approach: determine the formal structure, and make a piece of your own in exactly the same structure, down to the same phrase-lengths. If the original is chorale-based, see if you can create your piece by using a different (but similar) chorale or hymn tune but otherwise adhering closely to the original.

There are dozens of fine books on musical form and analysis. I will limit myself to one recommendation, another little paperback: “Fundamentals of Musical Composition” by Arnold Schoenberg (Faber and Faber, 1999).

Conclusion:
This is your music. I have suggested some ideas; if you do not find them helpful, try something else. You may be temperamentally unsuited to months of scale harmonization. Or you might not have the slightest interest in counterpoint, or patience for species counterpoint exercises. Or you might find that counterpoint is of supreme interest to you, and harmony – not so much. Try different approaches; when you find a path that is promising, follow it.

But a caution is in order, which is also a word of hope: the time will come when you are stuck. You have been improvising for a while, perhaps years, and you have been pleased with your work. But after a while, it has begun to all sound the same, and you may feel that you are trapped in a style that has become your style, but in which you have nothing more to say. Your dissatisfaction is an important and hopeful point in your musical career, for it will force you into a new path. And it may lead you back to basic work with harmony and form, or counterpoint. The tools will be there when you need them.