How Does One Prepare for an Improvised Piano Concert?

I’m so glad you asked: how do you prepare to improvise?

Freely Improvised, Not Jazz Standards

Now, it’s one thing if I were preparing for a concert of jazz standards. Obviously, for that, I would need to learn a few hours worth of well-known (aka “standard”) songs. On the flip side, I’d need to know or learn how to improvise on those tunes and chord changes.

It’s another thing altogether when it’s free improvisation. What I mean by that is it won’t (necessarily) be based on any prior tunes or songs. It comes straight from the imagination of the improviser through the fingers and onto the instrument.

Improvisation as Spontaneous Composition

This is why one of things I like to call free improvisation is “spontaneous composition”. I’m composing a piece of music in real-time; going from silence to song in the moment. So, how can I prepare for this.

One thing I’ve done to prepare for this is years of lessons, training, construction/deconstruction of great pieces of music, and so on. These days, it involves hours of practice every week and listening to pianists I admire. These include Keith Jarrett, but also dozens of other spontaneous composers on the piano.

Music Is Life

Improvising is also a result of life experience. In addition to the specific learning of piano technique and listening to other improvisers, every moment leads up to the creative process.

Walking the canine member of our family, going for a hike with a friend, quiet time alone, and attending a boisterous party all inform what I create. Of course, these are just examples. There are hundreds of other life experiences that have led to the moment my fingers next touch the piano keyboard.

Music and life are like a circle for me. I am born. I hear music and that invigorates my life. Invigorated, I create music which feeds my life yet again.

Fall of Freedom

As I prepare to play a piano improvisations concert for “Fall of Freedom“, I am also pondering the freedoms lost in 2025. With the attacks on our neighbors and across the USA becoming rampant, I don’t see how I can avoid thinking about these losses.

Why do we value freedom? What does it give us? How is freedom important to creative arts like music? These will be questions I’ll be asking out loud and in my heart at this concert. Please join us in person or in spirit as we celebrate our freedoms and call on people to reclaim the freedoms lost.