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R&B legend Ray Charles would have been able to tell you firsthand that improvisation can be a successful part of the songwriting process. In his case, onstage improvising with his bandmates resulted in “What’d I Say,” a song that’s been ranked number 10 in Rolling Stone’s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” It was improvised at the end of a show in 1958 where Ray still had time remaining in his set, and the result was his first gold record. Improvising is a powerful learning tool that should be a part of everyone’s songwriting process.
There are two ways to improvise. One way is to establish a repetitive chord or rhythmic pattern, or basic song form, over which you create melodic ideas. This can be done alone, by setting up beat and/or chord patterns on a synthesizer, or with others in your band.
The second way is to start “cold”- simply start playing melodic and harmonic fragments at a keyboard or guitar, and let your imagination wander. Let’s look at both ways and determine the pros and cons.
The first method is the one used by Ray Charles on that night that he and his bandmates improvised “What’d I Say” onstage. This kind of improvisation is fun to do, because you start with a formula that establishes chords, rhythm and form. In the case of “What’d I Say”, the form is 12-bar blues, over which Ray Charles improvised a melody and lyrics.
The benefit of this kind of improvising is that the backing form (12-bar blues) ensures that you’ve got a large part of the song already working. In fact, even without the lyrics and melody, the song can be something that will entertain the audience. The blues form will strongly assist in the creating of the melody, and it’s a lot of fun to put it together.
The downside is that following a strongly predictable song form will mean that even though you’re improvising a lot of the song, it’s going to have to follow a very predictable layout. But you of course have the option of using that as your starting point, and then modify what you’ve done until you get something a little more creative.
The second way is simply starting cold, often called “free form” improvising, and it can happen like this: one member of the band begins by playing a melodic or harmonic idea, and the other members “respond” with ideas of their own. The result is usually much more creative, because no attempt is made to create something that conforms to a formula or established form.
This kind of creative improvisation can be tricky, especially with certain genres. For example, improvising a free-form country song won’t usually work because country music, as a genre, usually implies a certain kind of chord progression, and a certain kind of melodic construction.
But if your sound is already a bit “on the edge”, free-form improvisation can be a fantastic generator of ideas. You can take the ideas as material to reassemble into a song, or allow the improv to be a musical work in its own right.
In any case, improvisation is a tremendously useful tool for songwriters, and I recommend it for anyone who creates any kind of music. Improvisation sharpens the ears, and forces you to listen to others. It enhances your ability to respond to other musician’s ideas, and the results are usually exciting and stimulating.
And the great thing about improvisation is that you don’t have to use any of the ideas that don’t work. Just throw out things that don’t click, and keep improvising until you get something that does.
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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website
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“The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” is one of a set of 6 songwriting e-books that will show you how to write great songs, harmonize your melodies, and give you hundreds of chord progressions in the process.
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