Carl Humphries

The Piano Improvisation Handbook

The Piano Improvisation Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the practical skills and theoretical issues involved in mastering all forms of piano improvisation, including classical, jazz, rock and blues. Whereas most books offer little more than models for imitation and exercises for practicing, this one adopts an approach specifically designed to encourage and enable independent creative exploration. The book contains a series of graded tutorial sections with musical examples on CD, as well as an appendix listing useful scales, chords, voicings, and progressions across all keys, a bibliography, and a discography. In addition to sections outlining how melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, and form work in improvised piano music, giving distinctive emphasis to the interconnectedness of classical and jazz improvisation, there are sections devoted to explaining how ideas can be developed into continuous music and to exploring the process of finding a personal style.