An Interesting Creative Activity

Here is an improvisational strategy that works on a more intuitive level that can help you develop musical ideas. It works on any piece, but it is best to start with a shorter work with a clear form, like a minuet.

First you need to be able to play through the piece with everything there. You can’t be creative with a piece if you can’t even play it.

The next step looks different if you are working with a digital or a paper copy. If it is a digital copy that you can edit, you create a colored box that you can use to cover over a single measure of music. If it is a paper copy, this is more complicated, but you can cut out several squares of paper. It is easier to lie the music down flat, and then you can put the squares down over the measures you want to cover. I would recommend using a pdf on this one.

Now, what you cover up depends on what you want to do. You can cover just the right hand, or just the left hand, or both. The number of measures you cover is also up to you.  My preferred method is to only cover the right hand, and to cover one measure at a time.

Once you have covered up your measure(s), then you play through your piece as normal. Once you get to the blank measure, your job is to make up something convincing in the space. You can try it several times and do different options.Then you can add more blank measures. This means that you will be improvising more and more as you play through the piece.

Eventually, by covering up one  measure at a time, you will end up with a completely blank score, and you will be improvising something new with exactly the same number of measures that you started with. It is interesting to see what the end result is after you have gone through the process!