There are so many elements of music to think about when improvising! It's so easy for our brains to get into the "red zone" and overload! There's not only WHICH notes to play, but HOW to play them: volume, articulation, intonation, breathing, rests, phrasing... In the beginning, to create more "space" or "processing speed" in the brain, limit your improvisation to the first three notes of the scale. Record yourself and share your examples here or post them in the 🌊Improv Waterfall!

Here's a challenge for beginners as well as advanced players: Pick ONE note. Any note. Now make a solo on that note. How interesting & musical can you make it? Can you make it groovy? Focus on making the variations of this ONE note as compelling as possible... that way, when you play a solo with two or more notes, you'll be in the good habit of playing big dynamics and articulations!

I think of this song frequently when mentioning that you can improvise on just one note! Listen to how she improvises at first with just one note. Then she stays MOSTLY on that note but just adds one more. Then one more. It gradually gets more complex - like turning up the volume on a dial! Can you imagine being him trying to improvise along on that single note? Bah! I encourage you to record your own one-note improvisations and share them here in the comments or post them in the improv waterfall!

Personally I've experienced this - where my performance anxiety overall went down after practicing improvisation regularly - so I wasn't surprised when Nancy reported: Her stage fright's basically gone. A little bit of adrenaline I think helps us perform well, but when our anxiety goes through the roof it can ruin a performance. If you had to rate your performance anxiety on a 0-10... and 0 is nothing, 10 is a full-blown panic attack, where are you at in your performance journey?