Effective Cultivation Of Harmony Thinking In Keyboard Improvisation

The author has since childhood been exposed to keyboard instruments including single key electronic organ,piano and electronic organ,during which he picked up keyboard improvisation skills.He devoted most of his effort to piano improvisation and thus has solid foundation in it.In his college years,the author found that both current amateur and professional piano education emphasize training the learners in reproducing the holistic style of the pieces and in finger techniques,while improvisation falls out of most of such courses.Moreover,the author had clear knowledge from his daily teaching activities of the many difficulties piano learners face.Students with some piano background mostly have vague perception of the mood,function and direction of chords.Some even tend to be puzzled by basics like primary chords.Starting from his specialty and his reflections upon the current piano education,the author in this paper elaborates on his theory and methodologies in training the learners,harmony thinking in keyboard improvisation(here specifically in piano improvisation).This paper covers three parts.The first part talks about the Necessary Preparations that constitute the foundation for the second part:Skill Training-from Basically Practice of Keyboard Harmony to Improvisation.The third part's titled "Concretization of Harmony Aesthetics".This part analyzes the function of chords and specifies the choice of chords according to style,audience and occasion.This paper intends to help more people find interest and have better performance in keyboard improvisation by providing them with feasible methodologies in fostering harmony thinking.It can hopefully inspire future researches into the same or similar fields.