Learn to Compose Your Own Cadenzas and Variations
9 ways to improve your improv and craft a cadenza
I learned how to improvise by the “sink-or-swim” method when, as a teenager, I was invited to participate in a promotional concert sponsored by the Barcus-Berry Corporation. The firm had just come out with its first line of electric violins and violas. We performed pop favorites and a few jazz classics. All of us were expected to improvise a solo on cue during the performance. As we played Isaac Hayes’ theme from the movie Shaft, the conductor pointed at me and said, “Hit it.” I was terrified, yet excited, and the solo came off pretty well.
From that moment on I was hooked on improvising.
This article, "Learn to Compose Your Own Cadenzas and Variations," is part of the Strings Archive, which you can access with a paid site subscription.
If you have a paid subscription, you are seeing this message because you have not logged in.
What do you want to do?
Log in using my current paid subscription account.
Subscribe now and get our best offer.
- Violin Music: Comprehensive Look at Beethoven Violin Cadenzas
-
- How to Play Sibelius’ ‘Malinconia,’ Op. 20, for Cello & Piano
-
- The Anatomy of a Challenging & Historic Violin Concerto
-
- Shubert's Fantasia in C major, D. 934 (Op. 159) for violin and piano, a rhapsodic masterwork
-
- Joshua Bell on Composition, Hyperviolins,
-
- Rachel Barton Pine Pens a Book of Cadenzas, Alina Ibragimova Is Annointed as a Super Brit, the Carolina Chocolate Drops Sign with Nonesuch
-
-
1
-
ARE FULLY MODERATED
You must be logged in to rate and comment. Log in or Subscribe now.