Musical Improvisation

This tool was developed as part of Cultural Cwtsh, which was an online creative wellbeing hub for the health and care workforce in Wales, created by the Arts Council of Wales in collaboration with artists across the country.

In partnership with the Arts Council of Wales, we’re excited to share this mental wellbeing tool, alongside with many other creative resources, with everyone in Wales!

Whether or not you think of yourself as musical, these videos are for you.

You can take part with your voice, or on whatever instrument you might play.

Improvisation simply means ‘decision making in the moment’. You don’t have to ‘hear’ complex melodies and rhythms in your head, you just need to learn to make gradually more informed decisions. By having to make constant small decisions, it helps keeps you grounded and reduces stress levels.

In the first video we look at improvising tunes. We’ll start by gathering a small pool of notes, before learning how to build energy and shape a melody.

In the second video we’ll work on groove and rhythm. We’ll write some short sentences and use these to come up with rhythmic patterns for our tunes.

In the final video we’ll improvise in response to images in our head. We’ll be using the sounds and shapes of water as inspiration in this video, but you can do this with anything.

If you want to explore any of these ideas further, there are longer mp3 backing tracks and an accompanying PDF for more inspiration.

I’m looking forward to seeing what we create together!

Chris Roberts

Written and presented by Chris Roberts

Audio by Dylan Fowler

Filmed and edited by CreatedByCal

Guitar – Chris Roberts

Cello – Gillian Stevens

Percussion – Jonno Gaze

Listen to the long Tunes mp3 backing track.

Listen to the long Groove mp3 backing track.

Listen to the long Images mp3 backing track.