Learn to improvise. 2005-2006. Lesson 11: main points as orientation when improvising on a song.

It is nice to play a song. But it starts to get boring without variations. You can make an own song, build on your own change with self chosen melodic and rhythmic variations.

[G] Sinter[D7]klaas wordt jarig [C] 'k Zet mijn [Go] schoen vast [G] klaar
[D7] Licht dat hij ze [G] vol[Em]doet [A7] met ja wist ik 't [D7] maar
Hier zet ik wat [G] haver [D7] en wat hooi voor 't [G] paard
Want dat [G+] trouwe [C] beestje [D7] is het heusch wel [G] waard

Listen to this.

The first time you can play this tune -a Dutch folksong for the celebration of Saint Nicolas on December 5- normally as indicated above. You can play it a second time and then start to vary by using different chords with the left hand. You can play it a third time and then also start to make variations on the melody with your right hand.

But when you make to many melodic variations it gets to difficult and you loose the change. To put this right, you must use orientation points as main point: every now and then a little piece of melody in the beginning of the line that marks the song that you play, a part that you will recognize and will enable to pick up the song again without losing where you where. It will put you back on the track of the authentic song after varying on it. When you play and you have the text of the song with the change in front of you, you make sure that these pieces of the line, that are used as orientation points, become an outstanding main point by printing them thick, making them yellow or underline them. These parts are your lighthouse in a fog of beautiful variations, the solid way that leads you back to the home of the authentic song and make you come home safely.

[G] Sinter[D7]klaas wordt jarig
[C] 'k Zet mijn [Go] schoen vast [G] klaar
[D7] Licht dat hij ze [G] vol[Em]doet
[A7] met ja wist ik 't [D7] maar

Hier zet ik wat [G] haver
[D7] en wat hooi voor 't [G] paard
Want dat [G+] trouwe [C] beestje
[D7] is het heusch wel [G] waard.

The main points in 'Sinterklaas wordt jarig' and 'Hier zet ik wat haver' bring you in the home situations for a while, in order to let you know where you are.

Listen to this.

The better you master the song and the more often you have played it, the less orientation points you will need to make sure that you don't loose the headline of the song.


HOMEWORK: Make main points in a song on which you improvise.
<< Homepage / Index of the course / Next page >