IFR blog > Practice tips > Creating a new music practice > Special for beginners learning to improvise
Melody Paths with chords 1, 6-, 2-, 5D

This is a practice video for Improvise for Real students who want to understand and internalize the chord progression 1, 6-, 2-, 5D. First, we will understand the role of each chord in the progression, and then we will practice ear training with the Melody Paths exercise.

Ear Training for Musical Creativity

Imagine being able to listen to a song and recognize every note of the melody by ear. What would that do for your musical creativity and improvising? In this video course you will learn how to develop this ability, adding a whole new creative dimension to your improvising.

IFR video lesson: Always be composing

In this video we demonstrate several examples of one of our favorite musical principles, which is to use every musical exercise as an opportunity to practice the art of musical storytelling.

Improvising with classical right hand technique

An IFR student asks how to incorporate classical right hand fingerstyle technique in the IFR creative exercises. In this video I demonstrate the two most useful right hand techniques to learn first.

Piano for Non-Pianists 10: Tonal five finger drills, part 2

In this lesson we'll break our tonal five finger drills out of their original tonal context and learn to create them anywhere on the piano keyboard.

Do I need to read sheet music to understand IFR?

I've heard so many great things about IFR. Is it necessary for me to read sheet music to understand the concepts in your book?

Q&A - Should I wait to get my chops back?

A trumpet student asks whether he can begin IFR right away, or whether he needs to first develop a certain level of technical proficiency on his instrument.

Recognizing Chords by Ear

Building on the skills you learned in Ear Training for Musical Creativity, in this course you will learn to how to recognize chords by ear so that you can play and improvise over songs without having to ask what the chords are.

Visualizing larger intervals on the fretboard

Sometimes when you are soloing, it's easy to see the notes immediately surrounding you but it's hard to picture instantly a note that's farther away. In this video I show you how you can learn to visualize larger intervals on the fretboard.

How to recognize melodies by ear using the key of the music

In this video you'll learn the most important technique for recognizing songs and melodies by ear. The technique is to focus on the path that the melody traces through the overall key of the music.