hello
i`ve been playing piano for around a 10 to 11 months. fine-im learning pieces-but- what i want to do is have a day where i can improvise. learnin a piece takes time and playing the same piece over and over again annoys me. lookin at my piano i say right what can i play? erm...nothin but pieces. the black & white notes don`t add up!? any books out there u could recommend?

Unfortunatelt I live in another country so I can`t recommend any books on the subject, but I can tell you this:
When you beging playing an instrument ir`s usually boring. I know, I`ve been there, done that. So in order to make you education proceed faster and become more fruitful I suggest you pick your pieces yourself. For example, Joplin has brilliant pieces which sound terribly fun and hard to play, but are in fact very easy (look at Maple Leaf Rag! It took me a week or so to learn the whole thing a few years ago).
So just look at what the world has to offer you at your present level and pick something that appeals to you.
Learning things you like is fantastic...
As for improvizing...
Meh...
Bah...
I have absolutely nothing positive to say on this ubject. I find it doesn`t improve your technique in any way whatsoever, so you`ll remain as stuck as you are now. When you get better then I sggest you try it...
Of course I`m not a particularly brilliant improvizer myself so I might be wrong, so let`s see what other people have to say about this...




[size=10]Oy!! All of you improvizers out there! Respond![/size]






Also, this is pretty pointless I guess, but if you want to listen to some amazing improvizations, give Muse`s Piano thing a listen... Fantastic... Especially if you consider that the person who played the piano (Matt Bellamy) composed it as he played it and recorded it at the same time...(after all, that`s the point of improvization, ain`t it?)

Olga.

i have based my whole learning program on impro.because the immediacy of the approach is much more effective. don`t be scared to defy your limitations;few weeks after i began playing the piano i could already do things that would otherwise take years with regular training.why you ask? because i didn`t knew what was hard ,people said "how can you possibly do this after such a short time" believe me or not i mastered the two first lines of the 3rd mouv of the moonlight nearly five months after I BEGUN PIANO playing.and seemingly it`s not about skill, it`s about attitude!!!plain and simple.maybe my hands are genetically driven who knows? what i know is that my talent is pretty much volatile;sometimes i look like a two yrs old,unable to align three notes,but sometimes i make wonders,my pulse races,my heart beats fast and reveals to me what i`m programed to do:compose... pursue what the great masters began chopin,mozart they all learned by improvising.but you cannot reinvent centuries of understanding by yourself.specific pieces must be played,mostly bach ,but you find things in all things and all things suggest gestures,tricks and tweeks.if you want to compose don`t listen to too much music read it like the masters to learn from it to create from it,or else you`ll mix up variations........... work 4 to 6 hours a day.tell me of your progress!!!