As pianists who live in the modern age, we need to actively nurture our creativity. Everywhere we look we see people trying to pigeonhole us or tell us how we “should” be.
“10 Ways to play jazz piano like Bill Evans.”
“Do what Steve Jobs did and you’ll be successful.”
These are fine and good and yes, we can learn from them. But unless we’re really careful, we can spend our whole lives trying to be like others. Wouldn’t it be a shame to never find out who we are?
Luckily, there is also a lot of inspiration around us to nurture our own creativity. But sometimes we have to search for it.
I recently discovered a wonderful blog by David Wahl, called Creative Creativity. David writes about creativity from many different angles, and I found one of his posts especially relevant to learning piano improvisation. In fact, while reading it I kept seeing myself when I was a teenager, sitting at the piano for hours every day doing exactly what he’s describing!
I hope his writing inspires you too. You can enjoy the article here:
Practice that feels like playing