Do you like writing down improvisation?

By Vidas Pinkevicius (get free updates of new posts here)​​​

Here is an exercise from Guiem, my student from Palma de Mallorca (Spain) in Prelude Improvisation Formula course. I wanted to share them because they are too good.

This week's exercise was taken from E minor prelude by J.S.Bach. This is an early version from the Clavierbuchlein for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach which was later incorporated into Well-Tempered Clavier Part I.

In the later version, Bach adds an upper ornamented solo voice to the right hand part but here, the texture is strictly limited to the chords in the right hand and the running sixteenths in the left hand, making our improvisation less complicated but nevertheless very beautiful.

​In the picture above you can see the figure that this prelude is based upon.

​​And here's what Guiem wrote to me:

Hello Vidas

Two small questions;

In relation to the material supplied so far basic is intended an improvisation as for example the one written by me and photographed that I attach to this e-mail ?.

And without pretending a correction of the errors, which has them, it would be interesting to comment on the length of the sequences or, in any case, to have a model already made for their contrast.

I like your course, it is a pleasure to practice the exercises.

Guiem Ferrà from Palma de Mallorca (Spain)
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Below are the 3 pages that Guiem sent to me. You can actually see how beautiful this prelude is when you play it. In Prelude Improvisation Formula course the students would improvise something like this on the keyboard.

I think it's great that Guiem wrote out his improvisation. And we have to remember that every student would improvise such prelude a little differently.

If you ever try your hand at improvisation, at the beginning stages it always helps to write down your ideas.