If you can now play Teardrops in tempo, you will be ready to add on the melody and then, in a very simple way, begin to improvise a little.

Here, first of all, is an example of the piece with the melody superimposed on the rhythm accompaniment that we presented last month.

The next step is often a difficult one for those instrumentalists who have been trained to play only by reading a score and memorising it. Instead of playing the written notes, look into your imagination and feeling, and listen for other possibilities and directions suggested by those notes. Think of the process as searching for variations on the original theme. Tune into the mood and structure of the original music and then let your own feelings and ideas modify it to produce their own version. I find that this approach is very helpful in endeavouring to understand and learn new music. Even if the aim is an interpretation of the written score, you can really speed up the understanding of that score if you see and realise what other possibilities the composer might have used and did not.

In our example tune, Teardrops, the chord symbols represent the harmonic structures of the music, and in last month's article we learned which notes were contained in those structures. We shall, therefore, in the improvisation, use only those notes. We shall, in effect, modify the melody and its rhythm by playing with the notes of the accompanying chord structures.

A pianist has a tremendous advantage over the guitarist in this area of playing because he can play and sustain a harmony with one hand and improvise a melody pattern with the other. The guitar player must find the essential notes of the chord and play them with as few fingers as possible in order to give himself some freedom to embellish the chord with the remaining fingers. He must use economic fingerboard shapes. In this particular approach to improvising we need understand no theory other than remembering that we are involved only with the notes contained in the current chord structure. We can, however, change the layout of the chord and/or the octave of any note. Here is an example, with an analysis chord by chord. Play the tune first and then read the notes.

Bars 1 & 2 Dm 7. Finger 4 plays C, the 7th of the chord and we omit the 16th notes.

Bars 3 & 4 Gm 7. Finger 4 adds on Bb, the 3rd of the chord.

Bars 5 & 6 Dm 7. Using the same idea as in bars 1 & 2 but adding in F, the 3rd of the chord.

Bar 7 Cm 7. Finger 4 plays Bb, the 7th of the chord and echoing the pattern played on Dm 7 in bars 1 & 2.

Bar 8 Eb 7. Stressing Db, the 7th of the chord and emphasizing the key change into Ab.

Bar 9 Abmaj 7. Playing the chord as an arpeggio, with G, the 7th of the chord, placed on top instead of in the middle.

Bar 10 Dm 7b5. Resting on F, the 3rd of the chord.

Bar 11 Gm 7. Repeating the arpeggio idea from bar 9.

Bar 12 Gb 7 +. Resting on D natural, the "interesting" note of this chord.

Bar 13 Fm 7. Repeating the pattern from bar 11 and thereby establishing a new thematic pattern.

Bar 14 E7 +. Repeating the idea from bar 12.

Bar 15 Em 7b5. Arpeggiating the chord, on an idiomatic rhythm pattern.

Bar 16 A7. Stressing the 3rd, C , and the root. A, in order to lead back to Dm and the next variation.

Now play the piece again using the above embellishment as your basis. Working this way there will be a sense of growth through the music and it will not sound like a set of variations "stuck" together.

If you have not approached music this way before, do not be discouraged if you do not come up with anything quickly. For you it will be a new technique to learn and you must be content to move step by step. I would suggest, in this case, that you work chord by chord, in sequence. Do not move onto the second chord until you feel some sense or logic with the first one. Keep listening to the chord and ask yourself what it means to you. Feel what significance that particular group of notes has for you. With a little persistence you will begin to feel well rewarded from your efforts.