Mastering Improvisation Through Auto-Rhythm/Accompaniment Technology

Tom Stampfli

Rose State College

Improvisation has generally been a lost art form during this century. As the 21st century approaches, the value of this skill becomes increasingly apparent to musicians who must function in the genres of both commercial and serious art music. New technological performance and recording mediums further present enticing opportunities for the musician who can improvise in a variety of styles. The auto-rhythm and accompaniment capabilities of today's digital keyboards provide an excellent format by which these lost skills can be regained. This paper offers some suggestions by which teachers can successfully impart this skill to students through this relatively untapped technological resource.

As the field of piano pedagogy has progressed during the past two decades, a greater emphasis has justly been placed upon developing the basic musicianship skills within students of both average and significant talent. Key among these skills is the ability to improvise intelligently, an ability that has largely been ignored for the past century by the mainstream conservatory model of piano teaching and performance. While the historical context of this omission is a subject worthy of its own study, it is sufficient at this juncture to note that this skill, once considered essential to the development of the complete musician, faded from pedagogical significance in the late and post-Romantic era of the virtuoso pianist. As the quest for an extraordinary technique often dwarfed other pedagogical considerations, the gap between performer and composer widened, resulting in the loss of the improvisatory art form, both on the concert stage and in the private parlor of the educated amateur. This art form, no longer accepted within most academic circles, was maintained thereafter only within the jazz, popular, and folk genres of the American culture, a second-class cousin to serious Western art music. Relegated to this position, it soon became a self-taught medium, usually mastered by only those with superior aural perception.

Beginning in the decade of the sixties, a resurgence of interest towards regaining this skill came into being within the educational community, but it was predominantly a revival in concept only. Educators simply did not know how to teach it. This can be seen in the fact that only twenty-seven articles on the subject of improvisation were published in piano and peripherally related journals between the years of 1965 and 1993, while volumes were produced in other, more familiar areas of keyboard instruction.1 The pedagogy of improvisation had been lost along with the skill, and most teachers were unwilling to attempt to teach what they could not do themselves. The art form, therefore, remained within the purview of the self-taught jazz and pop musicians.

With the advent of the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) communication protocol and the rapid development of the digital electronic keyboard medium, the demand for improvisational skills has increased from both the student's and professional's perspective. Amateurs and professionals alike currently have easy access to relatively inexpensive keyboard and digital recording technology. Technological acolytes have quickly come to recognize the value of improvisational skill in producing multi-timbral keyboard arrangements, extemporaneous solo passages against sequenced accompaniments, and various individual instrumental parts within small ensembles, all skills which dominate the multi-faceted "pop" music environment.

Educators now concede the advantages to possessing, as well as teaching, the ability to improvise. Teachers with at least partial mastery of this skill can quickly sequence interesting and educationally sound ensemble accompaniments to otherwise less interesting pedagogical keyboard literature for the early and intermediate grades levels. The importance of basic theoretical concepts can be established within the minds of those students who experience the relationship between theory and the actual musical application through immediate reinforcement via extemporaneous composition.

Improvisation tends to be the synthesis of the basic skills acquired through sight reading, harmonization, ensemble activities, and stylistic analysis of repertoire. Finally, improvisation is representative of the creative process itself. Participation in this type of creative activity can be a great motivation for students struggling to master the technical skills requisite to performing either art music or popular literature. More than merely attempting to reproduce a previously conceived work of art, it allows each individual to experience to some degree the illusive creative urge that has propelled all artists throughout history to express themselves within a musical context.

If the inculcation of improvisational skills into the student's musical experience reaps positive pedagogical rewards, how can the actual process be practically disseminated? While the answer to this question is as varied as those who attempt to teach the skill, it is the premise of this author that the use of auto-rhythm and auto-accompaniment technologies, relatively old and somewhat controversial electronic keyboard invention, may be extremely useful when introducing students to positive experiences with improvisational activities.

Auto-rhythms can best be described as digitally-recorded drum tracks using varying levels of rhythmic complexity, which can be accessed from the keyboard. Auto-accompaniments are an extension of this concept, supplying supplemental accompaniment textures using various instrumental timbres to support the melodic ideas attempted by the user. Auto-rhythms can usually be utilized apart from the harmonic accompaniment patterns. When auto-rhythms are used exclusively, the entire keyboard functions in a manner similar to any electronic keyboard, producing the chosen instrumental timbre as the appropriate key is depressed. These keyboards usually accommodate a variety of instrumental timbres, depending upon the brand and model. When the auto-accompaniment function is activated, however, the keyboard is split into two zones. The right-hand side of the keyboard continues to function as usual, but the left-hand zone activates the harmonic accompaniment patterns. Depending upon the setting, a user simply plays a single tone, block chord, or block chord inversion within the accompaniment zone, and the proper harmonic progression is initiated. The accompaniment patterns vary in length from one to four measures, but the harmonic sequence can be interrupted at any point to change harmonies simply by depressing the keys of a new chord within the accompaniment zone. While there are many permutations on the basic control functions and styles, the operating concept is universally consistent among various brand names. While the performance concept for this technology is relatively simple, its implementation is not. The erroneous perception that these keyboards are "easy play" instruments has harmed their use within traditional teaching circles. It may be surprising to those outside of the keyboard education field that the auto-rhythm and auto-accompaniment technologies have been so long ignored or rejected as a viable pedagogical tool. Yet the myths and misconceptions surrounding the history of this technology may indicate the reason, or at least the rationalization, used by the academic community for the avoidance of this hardware. During the latter half of the decade of the sixties, organ companies began distributing electronic models possessing rudimentary auto-rhythm capabilities. In an effort to sell these new innovations, companies unfortunately chose to market these devices as easy-playing instruments, requiring little or no training to utilize. The academic music community, ever mindful of its carefully guarded role as keyboard instructors, saw this claim as a threat to their livelihoods. Independent private piano teachers envisioned these robotic instruments leading potential students away from the rigors of traditional keyboard training with the promise of effortless musical fulfillment through these innovative automated organs. The problem was exacerbated by the appearance of the less expensive "fun" machines that became popular during the seventies.

These fears were justified to some extent, as many customers, willing to believe the marketing ploy, did indeed purchase these keyboards in the hope of achieving easy gratification of their musical aspirations. Yet teachers reacted too quickly, for the marketing claim was soon proven to be a falsehood. These instruments, while easy to listen to, were far from easy to play. Purchasers soon found that despite the printed aids accompanying their instruments and even the orientation classes offered with their purchase by some dealers, the instruments, though automated, would not play themselves. Most users discovered that playing with previously recorded rhythm and/or drum tracks was in no way the easy activity demonstrated by the salesman, who in most cases, had received traditional keyboard training. In addition, these untrained consumers were unable to read or perform traditionally notated music and most of them could not play by ear. The myth of an easy play keyboard vanished in the light of actual use. Realistically, it was only musicians with traditional training and a few rare individuals with superlative ears that ever mastered the ease of use promised by the salesmen.

Yet from a pedagogical perspective, the damage had been done. Keyboard teachers, whether pianists or organists, declined to sanction the use of these auto-rhythm machines and certainly refused to teach their use. The renewed interest in regaining the improvisatory skills lost during the last century had not reached a sufficient level of acceptance to encourage experimentation with new pedagogical techniques. The time was not yet right for developing pedagogical strategies utilizing auto-rhythm technology.

With the development of digital technology, improved sampling techniques, and the MIDI protocol, electronic instrumentation has made quantum leaps in producing instrumental sounds that rival their acoustic counterparts as well as creating a wealth of non-traditional timbres. Auto-rhythm and auto-accompaniment technologies benefited from these new hardware innovations, resulting in more complex and aesthetically pleasing patterns. Auto-rhythm technology, while still available on some models of electronic organs, has moved primarily into the realm of digital pianos and keyboards. Models range in price, complexity, and aural quality; and are available from both discount warehouses and traditional music stores. Regardless of origin and quality, this technology has become widely disseminated throughout American culture. However, while the technology has evolved, its usefulness within educational circles has still not achieved wide acceptance. Its popularity with the public, however, has grown rather than diminished. While the same myths and limitations inherent in this technology still exist, the public appears willing to be taught the proper use of these instruments when it is offered. The time has come for music teachers to put away old biases and harness this potentially powerful educational tool.

As previously indicated, the development of improvisatory skills appears to be a prime application for the current auto-rhythm and auto-accompaniment technologies. Improvisation, still a relatively lost art within mainstream keyboard education, has again regained pedagogical acceptance, but not much development. The following suggestions, though not a complete curriculum, are pedagogical strategies which may be useful in developing a systematic approach to using this technology to teach improvisatory skills. The following recommendations are based upon informal observations and activities relating to improvisation, which have been used with elementary and preparatory keyboard students of various experience levels and ages. Students participating in these creative activities included hobby keyboard players as well as non-keyboard music majors, in both private and group lab environments. All of these students were exposed to the same model of digital keyboard with auto-rhythm and auto-accompaniment capabilities, the Kurzweil Mark 10 Ensemble Grand.

As auto-rhythm and auto-accompaniment technologies are not suitable for all types of improvisation, these activities were limited to the categories of informal music embellishment and free improvisation. Stylistic improvisation, based upon the stylistic rules of the various musical genres from the Common Practice Period, are not germane to this technology in its current state. Informal music embellishment is arbitrarily defined as the embellishment of all styles of Western music other than serious art music. In like manner, free improvisation is the pursuit of extemporaneous creation at the keyboard, both melodically and harmonically.

Experience in using this technology to foster various improvisational activities has demonstrated a number of advantages absent from more traditional approaches. Placing the creative activities of extemporaneous composition within the framework of auto-rhythm/ accompaniment tracks tends to aid the student in developing a stronger ensemble sense with a greater awareness of the maintenance of the rhythmic pulse. Many keyboard students fail to maintain tempo integrity when attempting to create extemporaneous melodic lines against a basic block chord progression in the bass. Placing the activity within the context of a strong rhythm/accompaniment pattern forces the student to acknowledge the pulse throughout his attempt. Failure to remain within the rhythmic context of the rhythm pattern is almost self-correcting, as the student immediately becomes aware of his deviation from the beat, an awareness that is not often demonstrated when working outside of this technology. Even working with a basic metronome does not appear to elicit consistent rhythmic integrity, possibly due to the fact that a metronome does not possess the textural substance found in more substantial auto-rhythm/accompaniment tracks. Experience has unfortunately proven that it is far too easy for students to ignore the metronome. Yet students seem unable to remain oblivious to the strong agogic pulse inherent within these auto-rhythm/accompaniment tracks. Students are therefore forced to hone their ensemble skills while simultaneously developing their improvisational ideas.

The textural and rhythmic patterns found in the better auto-rhythm/accompaniment patterns provide motivic material upon which the student can expand the melody. This is also helpful to introducing students to improvising in various informal styles such as various Latin rhythms. These internal motivic ideas provide a sympathetic context for either melodic embellishment or free melodic improvisation. The student intuitively senses that melodic ideas effective with a swing accompaniment will not be compatible with the samba style. The ear becomes the teacher, reinforcing the theory style to which the student should have already been exposed.

These accompaniment patterns also provide a basic harmonic rhythm that aids students in shaping free improvisational attempts. Inexperienced music students often have interesting ideas but fail to proportion them properly for the development of complete phrases and periods. Directing the student to first listen to the accompaniment pattern and identify the basic harmonic rhythm inherent within it can produce more successful initial attempts at free improvisation. Awareness of the harmonic rhythm found in the accompaniment is also helpful for students attempting to harmonize notated melodic lines from lead sheets, particularly if the student is planning on embellishing the long notes within the passage.

The following factors are more motivational than pedagogical, though nonetheless important. While many students may secretly yearn to improvise, it is often difficult to get them to attempt the process. Early attempts at improvisation often sound shallow and incomplete to many students, resulting in disappointment or even self-consciousness regarding their efforts. This is especially true in a group context where peer approval is always a factor. In these situations, many students find it safer simply not to try rather than try and fail. Contemporary auto-rhythm accompaniments present enticing rhythms and lush sounds that encourage students to make the attempt. They often feel that when playing against the strong background accompaniment available within the patterns, they will sound "OK", even if they make mistakes.2 A very simple melodic improvisation, limited to notes found within a single five-finger pentachord, can be aesthetically satisfying to beginning students when performed against a pleasing accompaniment pattern.

Playing with auto-rhythm/accompaniment patterns, while not easy to master, provides a greater sense of accomplishment than is possible working strictly with a traditional piano. Amateur keyboard players of all levels, as well as music majors learning functional keyboard skills, tend to find pleasure in developing improvisational skills in this context. Auto-rhythm/accompaniment technology also allows educators with only minimal keyboard skills to teach improvisational skills on a fundamental level, relying on the automated accompaniment patterns to supply the necessary background textures in certain activities that must otherwise be performed by the teacher. These positive motivational factors should encourage teachers to present more readily this activity as a regular lesson activity. Students will tend to see this instrument as a friendlier practice environment for improvisational activities, leading to more practice and quicker mastery of the skill.

The pedagogical strategies for teaching improvisation using auto-rhythm and auto-accompaniments are obviously highly diverse and open-ended, considering the fact that the exploration of this teaching concept has only recently begun. Certain approaches, however, have proven helpful in beginning the process. Before improvisational activities can take place, the student must possess sufficient rhythm and ensemble skills to function with an automated accompaniment pattern. These skills can best be honed by playing notated music and technical exercises in conjunction with the rhythm patterns of an automated keyboard. At this point in the student's development, the auto-accompaniment function should be disabled, enabling the student to play the keys below the split point without activating the harmonic accompaniment. For students who are already proficient pianists, early attempts at reading activities with these rhythm patterns should be made using review repertoire from at least two or three levels below the student's present technical capability. This allows the pupil to concentrate on matching the pulse of his or her own performance with that of the accompaniment pattern rather than concentrating on the technical difficulties of the music. As students become more proficient at performing with these patterns, the level of repertoire difficulty can begin to increase until their full capability is reached. Beginning students can be introduced to this type of playing from almost the outset of their training. Activities for beginners could begin with such rudimentary activities as playing a series of whole notes with a single hand to various rhythm patterns. These can lead to further subdivisions of the measure in various rhythmic combinations, always within the context of a rhythmic pattern. Beginning students, especially, should be encouraged to use some verbal counting system (whether metric, unit, syllabic, or nominative) while playing with these patterns. It is imperative that every student's first experiences with this technology be positive and successful in order to build the rapport with the instrument so necessary to later and more demanding creative activities.

At some point after mastering the ensemble requirements of these lower levels, students should be exposed to harmonization activities, again with literature in the form of lead sheets that is easy to read. Working exclusively with primary triads, students may initially practice the harmonization using blocked chords without the rhythm patterns. Once comfortable with the piece, however, the student can attempt it using various auto-rhythm patterns.

Once ensemble confidence with the automated rhythm patterns has been achieved, auto-accompaniment patterns may be added to the performance. When this new dimension is added, the students become responsible for a greater degree of ensemble sense, as the auto-accompaniment patterns contain inherent harmonic rhythm requirements that harmonically penalize a student for early or late entrances. As students gradually master this additional parameter, they can begin to expand the scope of their harmonization activities, increasing the harmonic vocabulary to secondary and borrowed chords. Students may also practice sight reading lead sheets within the context of various rhythm/ accompaniment patterns, an activity that trains their minds to extemporaneously realize keyboard passages that are not completely notated.

After successfully mastering basic harmonization skills using lead sheets, students should begin working with melodic embellishment, a significant creative step towards mastering improvisational skills. Keyboards containing auto-rhythm/accompaniment technology become a great tempo aid at this juncture by forcing students to maintain a time frame into which embellishments must be interfaced. Working on traditional keyboards, students often become so absorbed in their creation that they fail to maintain any semblance of pulse. Early attempts at melodic embellishments frequently interrupt rather than enhance the flow of the music, a phenomena that is particularly unacceptable when accompanying. The inexorable pulse presented by these auto-accompaniments necessitates that students maintain an awareness of the rhythmic flow of the line, teaching them to embellish it without arbitrarily extending or stopping it. Students become more judicious in choosing the degree of ornamentation or embellishment relative to the length of the melodic notes being manipulated.

The rhythm and accompaniment textures are available in many popular style variations on most of these instruments, helping students to avoid developing a single redundant improvisational technique, a trait not limited exclusively to students. The diversity within these different auto-accompaniments offers motivic ideas that can aid the development of embellished melodic passages, depending on the style chosen. Flexibility of style is made easier when there are motivic ideas already present from which a student can draw inspiration.

Many keyboards contain onboard multi-track and multi-timbral sequencers that allow students and teachers to digitally record the auto-rhythmic accompaniments and/or melodies onto individual tracks for later playback. Teachers or students can record either hand separately to serve later as an accompaniment for live practice or performance. This serves two purposes: It allows the student to concentrate exclusively upon the melodic embellishments of a single hand in the initial stages of this activity, and it can also be used to preserve entire extemporaneous performances for later analysis. The sequencer can also be the vehicle for recording supplemental improvisationally conceived accompaniment lines on additional tracks, enhancing the initial rhythm/accompaniment pattern in use.

As students venture into the realm of free improvisation, one of the major challenges to most students is the extemporaneous development of coherent chord progressions. While the basic chord progressions commonly studied in undergraduate theory are an excellent starting point in creating harmonies for free improvisational activities, these chord progressions, devoid of rhythmic, textural, and melodic padding, often prove to be too conceptually abstract for many students to integrate into their creative attempts. Students also have trouble developing the correct chord voicing for these progressions, further complicating the problem. Auto-rhythm/accompaniment technology can aid pianists in creating chord progressions by root movement through the use of single finger chording. On this setting, any key pushed within the accompaniment zone will produce a full triadic harmony in the designated accompaniment pattern. Minor triads are accessed by pressing both the root of the chosen triad and the adjacent left-hand key. By placing one hand in the five-finger pentachord position of the key in use, a student can easily access all of the diatonic triads of the selected key and many of the borrowed chords useful to standard harmonic progressions. Free from the effort of actually playing the complete triad, students can give full attention to the actual study of root movements of the different harmonic progressions. Beginning with simple cadential progressions such as I-IV-I, I-V-I, and I-IV-V-I, students move on to the use of secondary triads in patterns such as I-ii-V-I or I-vi-IV-ii-V-I. By practicing these triads within the context of the harmonic rhythms found in each pattern, students hear the progressions fully orchestrated with the exception of a melodic line. Working within this format, unfettered by their technical limitations, they can begin to develop an intuitive grasp of harmonies as they progress in various configurations.

As the harmonic progressions are gradually mastered, students will begin to experiment with right-hand melodic improvisations, based upon the shape of the chord progressions. One elementary activity useful in this auto-accompaniment format is to ask students to harmonize a major five-finger pentachord. This activity can be increased in complexity, working with major scales and then repetitive motivic patterns based upon intervals from the scale. Rhythm notation sheets can be a useful means of supplying specific rhythmic ideas from which a melodic improvisation can be developed, always within the context of the accompaniment patterns to maintain the pulse. When students become comfortable moving between root position triads, the instrument can be placed on the next setting which requires the full triad to be played in the accompaniment zone for the complete harmony sequence to commence. The instruments can also be set to recognize inversions, allowing students to experiment with voice leading in the accompaniment pattern.

These suggestions are by no means comprehensive, nor do they cover all of the activities necessary to train keyboard players in the art of improvisation. They are, rather, drills that utilize the unique properties found within auto-rhythm and auto-accompaniment instruments that may be beneficial to students attempting to learn to improvise. These comments are not meant to imply that this technology alone is the exclusive approach to teaching this skill. Auto-rhythm/accompaniment instruments are one tool, which aids in the introduction and development of this art form. The skills developed using these automated keyboards should eventually be applied to traditional keyboard instruments, as students, now more confident with their skills, begin to improvise without the aid of automation.

Total dependence upon automated rhythms can also lead to mechanical and metronomic playing on the part of the student. Within any genre, whether serious or commercial, musicians need to perform artistically, using subtle changes of tempo as an expressive tool, a skill that cannot be learned solely on auto-rhythm/accompaniment instruments. Finally, there comes a time when the accompaniment patterns, interesting as they are, become too limited a structure within which to create. As their skills mature, students should be encouraged to work in small ensembles of live performers, learning to mesh their improvisatory skills with other instrumentalists and glean ideas from others.

Auto-rhythm and auto-accompaniment technology may prove to be a valuable tool, especially in the early, delicate stages of improvisational training when the student needs every teaching aid available. Within this context, it may provide students and teachers alike a vehicle by which they can tentatively and then confidently discover the excitement and satisfaction that comes to those able to create extemporaneous music.