Piano Solo concepts: Intermediate lesson

Let’s talk about piano solo concepts and how I played the piano solo on my new song “Biome Bird Body” out on bandcamp – https://mattiasholmgren.bandcamp.com/track/biome-bird-body

How to begin a piano solo

I generally try to play sparse in the beginning of a solo. You don’t want to throw all your cards and have nothing to play for the rest of the solo. When I improvise a melody I think like it’s a conversation, at least some kind of spoken (or sung) melody by a voice. It will be easier to divide your melody into smaller phrases, rather than a long series of notes that will be impossible to comprehend for a listener.

Building the solo towards a climax

We build on the solo melody with higher pitches and probably more notes as you go towards some sort of climax.

And then you retract back to playing sparingly at the end, as a kind of closure.

Dynamic arc of a piano solo

So you have a dynamic arc / curve in the music piece, to build excitement.

Hope you enjoy this little mini tutorial on piano soloing. This is piano playing on intermediate level, I guess. Let me know what you think and if you have any questions!

Thanks for watching and supporting,

// Mattias

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