Improvisation is the art of making music happen on the spot. For many musicians, it can be very difficult and intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be. With the right mindset and practice strategies, anyone can learn how to improvise.

In fact, in some way, you already know how to improvise! By that, I mean you might already have a familiarity with the mindset you need in order to improvise. That’s because there are some essential conditions that improvisation share with other
aspects of life. In particular, improvisation means moving through time without trying too hard to control outcomes.

On any ordinary day, time passes by, and I perform a series of actions that I cannot redo. I make my breakfast, I play with my cat, I work out at the gym, I talk to my friends. I do all of these things without a script. That’s what improvising music is like.

Sure, scripts may help sometimes. I sometimes learn to cook from recipes, and conversations with others tend to follow patterns and conventions. But there is always an aspect of improvisation in daily life. Whatever conventions influence my behavior, each living moment involves some commitment to act that is specific to that moment and place in time. And it is time that determines the start and end of these actions: they occur within time, and I can’t turn time back to change them. Improvised music has the same relationship to time. As it passes, the improviser makes decisions about how to fill it. Whether they are good or bad decisions, they are formed only in the moment they are made. You can’t edit them like you can revise a musical composition.

That’s what can be so scary and difficult about improvisation: if you take an action but don’t like the result, there’s nothing you can do except keep going. For musicians who are used to playing written music, or who are distressed by the anticipation of judgment, that goes against a desire to control and refine performance. The thing is, though, is that even if your performance has been prepared and practiced, note for note, many times, there is still some element of improvisation in the final presentation. Every iteration is unique to its time and place, and there’s always the possibility of messing up, yet as a musician you have to be able to keep going without losing the flow of the music.

Accepting the possibility of mistakes and imperfections is essential to learning to improvise comfortably. There is never any certainty that everything you do is going to go right. But that danger is what makes improvisation beautiful and exciting for both players and audiences. An improvised performance is a vulnerable dance with time, just like life itself. The best improvisers are those who can handle vulnerability and unplanned events with grace and style. Perhaps it’s because they model the grace everyone wishes they could practice in everyday life.

Whether you have or haven’t improvised before, one of the best ways to practice is to work with some kind of restriction. For singers, that could mean choosing just a single word or a small phrase to sing over and over again in a different melody. I sing my cat’s name to him all the time, making up the melody as I go based on what I like or what he seems to like. That’s basically the idea.

Here’s an exercise you can try:  Set a metronome to 60 beats per minute, with an accent on beat 1 of 4. Every measure, sing “hello” with a different melody and/or rhythm. When you hear yourself sing it in a way that you like, try to do it four times in a row.

You can also improve your improvising by building up your improvisational “vocabulary.” That means, when you stumble across a melody, riff, vocal effect, or other musical element, practice it repetitively and in different ways. Doing so makes it more of a habitual gesture, so it is easier to use it if the moment calls for it. Think of it the way you think of spoken conversation: you don’t know what you’re going to say or what they other person is going to say, but you know a ton of words that you can use to express whatever you are thinking or feeling in the moment. Musical improvisation works the same way, except that your vocabulary is made up of musical ideas and gestures instead of words.

That said, for vocalists in particular, it can help to practice improvising lyrics, too. Your lyrics don’t always need to be profound or make a lot of sense. Ella Fitzgerald, one of the greatest vocalists and improvisers in recent history, was known to make up lyrics in her “scat” solos. In this performance of “How High The Moon,” she even starts singing explicitly about how she can’t remember the words so she’s just making them up. If you try an improvisation exercise and find it too difficult or scary, look for ways to make it even easier. To achieve the grace required to improvise, it is important to relax and not worry too much about what comes out. That’s not easy, but if you lower the bar for yourself, you can get used to the feeling.

What also helps people learn how to improvise is doing it with a teacher. At Arabella’s Voice Studio, you can work on your improvisation in a nonjudgmental environment with someone who can give you tips on what steps you can take to make your exploration more fun and interesting. The more you do it in front of someone else, the easier it is to get in the flow. Try it out!

And of course, improvisation is a great technique to try at home—it requires less structure and removes the fear of practicing the “wrong” thing. You can also check out our YouTube playlist, The Flipped Studio Model, for more ideas on how to practice and bring studio learning into your home practice.