The Inner World of Piano Improvisation: Playing piano with more joy and less stress Paperback – January 26, 2023

A lot of resources for learning piano improvisation will often just offer surface-level practice tips or specific instructions on things to do (practice scales and chords, do transcriptions, etc.). This book goes way deeper. It offers a liberating philosophy of playing piano and emphasizes enjoyment at each stage. It's a great point that I wish we heard more often around this notoriously difficult endeavor. "Liberation" here certainly doesn't mean a lack of effort; Ron presents a lot of specific approaches to help the aspiring piano improviser not just get in touch with their musical voice but develop it. He has a lot of insight on how to create a sustainable process of making music that can be continued indefinitely. The ideas here are great. I find myself going back over sections I've already read and getting new insights from them. I certainly recommend "The Inner World of Piano Improvisation" to anyone who's looking for a better approach, even seasoned musicians. I've been playing piano for decades and kept feeling like I was hitting a brick wall when trying to learn jazz. Ron's approach to improvisation has helped me change my orientation and not just make a lot of progress but also enjoy my time with the piano a lot more.

As a piano player who had played nothing but classical music, piano improvisation was sort of like black magic to me. I always wondered how pianists are able to "generate" music on the fly. Lately I have been able to improvise some simple tunes on the piano moderately comfortably after a year of struggling and I would say the mentality I have acquired through the process of learning how to improvise on the piano is 100% echoed in this book. As I was reading through the book I couldn't help but keep nodding my head.The interesting thing about this book is that the book is not here to teach you some fancy licks or techniques that will make you "sound good". It is more about introducing a mentality that lets you get comfortable with your own playing. And I think that is extremely important because if you are not comfortable with your own playing, you won't be able to enjoy/play the piano at all, let alone sounding good. And the sad reality is, from where I live, this mentality is not advocated AT ALL. Teachers where I live overwhelm you with scales and licks. And whenever they ask me to improvise during lessons, I would get so nervous and I couldn't play anything because I was afraid I couldn't play the scales and licks to "sound good". How can one learn to improvise if he is not comfortable with his own playing?Improvisation, from my perspective, requires that your musical intuition be organically grown. And the first step to that is to "just play". And for a beginner to "just play", he needs to feel comfortable with his own playing and be able to enjoy his own playing. This book is exactly about that. It will help you have the right mentality to kick-start your musical growth on the path to piano improvisation.

Ron is an accomplished pianist- He shares with his audience how to begin to embrace being a piano player that can play without stress, or fear of failure, whether you are a beginner or a professional piano player. He explains how to learn jazz or any other style of piano playing without focusing solely on countless exercises and theory that leave you exhausted and thinking you are not "advanced" enough. Ron helps you find the mindset to finally free you to play the piano with joy, and improvise, and provides great explanations and tips on line, which Ron himself demonstrates on the piano. Ron’s personal experience of growing up as a young musician around the jazz music greats- so unique. He shares how he learned to play the piano, jazz and other styles of playing and how that can help you. He is an excellent teacher! Found him on You tube at Keyboardimprov.com...... Excellent book!

This is a fabulous book and very different from other books about playing piano, or any other instrument and learning to trust one's self to improving, to follow the music. The author's approach is one of freedom to enjoy playing music no matter the day, one's current skill level, or even mood. This is an enjoyable and upbeat read as well a being packed with ideas for improving one's playing and relationship with music and self. This is a book I will come back to many times for inspiration and for practical advice on the how-to's of remaining motivated, of trying new things, of being unafraid to experiment. Besides having both practical and inspiring content, the author has also provided links that can be either clicked or scanned that lead to video posts on his abundant website where one can deepen into practical examples of the ideas he writes in the book. This is truly a wonderful book. I highly recommend.

Since reading this book, I have been enjoying myself much more at the piano. Ron's insights into the myth of perfection, for example, have really helped (being a lifelong perfectionist). Ron's concepts of fluency also hit home especially aiming to play with ease and flow rather than trying to sound "great" or "advanced." I applied some of these concepts to my jazz improvisation and for the first time in years really began to enjoy myself playing the "changes." These are just a few of the many inspiring and practical suggestions and concepts that you will find in this fabulous book. Highly recommended!

Ron does not seem to me to have an agenda as to how you should conform to someone else’s rules for playing. He seems to say you should invent your own rules and to develop your own individual style, and he is willing to be there with feedback to help find your way.