Used by students and teachers alike in more than 20 countries, Improvise for Real is considered by many to be the definitive system for learning to improvise.
Learn to express your own music
Improvise for Real is a learning method that teaches you how to improvise through easy-to-understand, enjoyable exercises. You’ll learn how chord progressions work and how to weave your own melodies effortlessly through them. IFR helps you express your musical ideas in any key and play directly from your imagination, developing the skills you need for true creative self-expression on any instrument.
Discover your own musical creativity
Improvise for Real will teach you how to play your OWN music. Maybe you dream of improvising your own solos in concerts and jam sessions. Or maybe you imagine yourself playing songs with friends at parties and expressing yourself with total confidence. Maybe you have ideas for songs and you would love to compose your own music. You can be doing all of these things much sooner than you think! All you need is a simple understanding of how music really works and how to connect with your own musical creativity.
These abilities don’t come from memorizing other people’s “licks” or studying music theory on paper. What you need is a deeper understanding of music that enables you to connect your ear with your instrument. In other words, what you really need is a creative daily practice that lets you understand music from the inside out, and truly create your own music.
Improvise for Real will take you into this beautiful world of sounds and show you how music and harmony really work. You’ll learn to understand the sounds in the music all around you. And you’ll learn to express your own musical ideas exactly as you hear them in your mind.
The desire to express your own music
If you are reading this, then you can probably identify with some of the following frustrations, which are a lot more common than you think:
- Are you mystified by people who can pick up their instrument and immediately begin playing along with any kind of music?
- Have you ever felt ashamed of your own musical ability, just because you couldn’t improvise over a particular song or couldn’t find the right notes?
- Do you wish you could play your favorite songs off the top of your head without any need for sheet music?
- Does your heart sink when you see a page full of complicated chord symbols, be cause you have no idea what’s really going on?
- Do you feel like you're struggling to connect scales and arpeggios together to make a solo? Do you wish you could weave melodies effortlessly through the chord changes and truly express yourself creatively?
- Would you love to be able to participate in jam sessions and feel totally confident and sure of yourself, no matter what’s going on around you?
- Do you dream of being able to discover and express your own music, the music that lies deep inside your imagination?
You're not alone!
Improvise for Real brings together musicians from all different backgrounds who share your desire to truly understand music and to enjoy creating it yourself. We don’t care about learning other people’s licks and formulas. We want to express our own music. We want to be able to understand music by ear and to improvise with confidence in any musical situation. And we want to learn to play directly from our imagination, expressing the sounds and melodies that we imagine.
The problem isn't you. The problem is the way you practice.
Everyone can create music. The key to accessing this natural ability is to understand how to study music in the first place. You’re not going to develop your creative abilities if you are stuck practicing scales all day. If you want to IMPROVISE and COMPOSE and CREATE your own music, then you need a daily music practice that has you doing that!
With Improvise for Real, students learn about music through creating music. We study music through jamming, improvising and creating music ourselves. You’ll have complete creative freedom to make music however YOU want to at each level of the method. But the method is organized so that while you are jamming, you are also developing a very deep and clear understanding of how all music works, so that you can then go on to express yourself with complete confidence in any musical situation for the rest of your life.
IMPROVISE FOR REAL
Everything you need in one method
Improvise for Real is the world’s first step-by-step method that teaches you to improvise your own music through progressive exercises that anyone can do. The method starts with very simple creative exercises that you can begin right away. Each exercise lets you master a very simple musical situation and you will learn to express yourself confidently in this situation. As you progress through these creative exercises, the method leads you on a guided tour of the entire world of modern harmony. And you’ll be jamming, enjoying yourself and creating your own music every step of the way.
Improvise for Real brings together creativity, ear training, music theory and physical technique into a single creative daily practice that will show you the entire path to improvisation mastery. If you have always dreamed of truly understanding music and being able to improvise with complete freedom on your instrument, this is the course for you!
THE LESSONS
Video lessons for all instruments
The IFR method applies to every instrument — but always through the lens of what your instrument actually does in music. Your instructor guides you through every concept with clear, hands-on exercises, so you always know exactly what to practice. From your very first lesson you’ll be jamming and expressing musical ideas.
Learn to improvise freely on guitar. IFR teaches you to see the entire fretboard as one connected landscape — so you can weave melodies through chords, solo in any key, and express your own music instead of memorized patterns.
Learn to improvise on the piano — no sheet music required. IFR teaches you to play from your imagination, understand harmony by ear, and express your own musical ideas from day one.
Learn to improvise and create your own music on any brass, woodwind or string instrument. IFR teaches you to understand harmony by ear, connect your imagination to your instrument, and play your own music in any key.
Learn to create your own bass lines, walking bass and melodic bass solos. IFR teaches you to understand the fretboard, play by ear, and create your own music in any key.
WHY IT WORKS
How is Improvise for Real different from other approaches
- A better understanding of harmony. The biggest problem that beginning improvisers have with expressing themselves creatively is that they are trying to apply licks and scales to isolated chords, but this isn't how music works at all. When you listen to your favorite songs, what you hear is a lovely interplay of notes and chords on a single musical landscape. With Improvise for Real you will learn to see this musical landscape and weave your own melodies effortlessly through the chords.
- Creativity right from the start. In every other art form (painting, poetry, etc.) students get to experience the creative process as a natural part of their learning. It's only in music that this creative process remains shrouded in mystery. Improvise for Real is changing all of that. We believe that your own creative exploration of the sounds is essential. With Improvise for Real you will be improvising and expressing your own musical ideas right from the very first day. This is true whether you're learning from the book or using our step-by-step video courses tailored for your instrument.
- Connection to the ear. Improvise for Real will show you how to connect your ear to your instrument. For each new harmonic situation that you learn, you'll explore the sounds creatively and you'll learn to HEAR these sounds in the music all around you. The result is a deep personal understanding of harmony that allows you to recognize melodies and chord progressions by ear and to play the sounds you imagine.
- Music as a journey. We believe that musical improvisation is the most beautiful art form in the world, and we want to help you enjoy this amazing art form for the rest of your life. What we teach is a journey through the entire world of modern harmony. But it's also a journey of your own personal growth as an artist. And so every step of the way, you'll be discovering your OWN musical voice and growing in your ability to tell powerful musical stories on your instrument.
TESTIMONIALS
See what fellow musicians are saying
Start Your Journey!
Choose the plan that works for you. Both give you complete access to everything IFR has to offer:
Start with flexible monthly access. Cancel anytime or upgrade to yearly when you're ready to commit.
Our most popular plan. Commit to a full year of musical growth and save 30% with annual billing. You’ll be amazed what a year with Improvise for Real can do.
Both plans include:
- Complete video courses for each instrument family
- 1,900+ jam tracks in all 12 keys
- Beautiful ear training audio lessons
- Special courses on the blues, jazz standards and more
- Single integrated learning method
- Calm, beautiful environment for your daily creative practice
- Complete freedom to learn at your own pace
- Access to our library of student Q&A + unlimited support by email
Try Improvise for Real risk-free
We’re confident that IFR will transform the way you think about music and unlock your creative freedom on your instrument. But we also know that every musician’s journey is unique. That’s why we offer a simple 30-day money-back guarantee.
Join today, explore the video lessons, practice with the jam tracks, and experience our unique approach to ear training. If you don’t feel that IFR is the right fit for you within your first 30 days, just send us an email and we’ll refund your payment—no questions asked.
GET ACCESS
The Improvise for Real Program
The IFR Membership gives you complete access to everything we’ve created: all video courses, the ear training program, hundreds of jam tracks, student Q&A, and new content added regularly.
- Complete video courses for each instrument family
- 1,900+ jam tracks in all 12 keys
- Beautiful ear training audio lessons
- Special courses on the blues, jazz standards and more
- Single integrated learning method
- Calm, beautiful environment for your daily creative practice
- Complete freedom to learn at your own pace
- Access to our library of student Q&A + unlimited support by email
Subscribe to our online school to get access to our entire method and start improvising right away!