Improvising in the manner of Debussy

Around 1890, Claude Debussy heard a Javanese gamelan at the Paris World Fair and went looking for a music that no longer marched to the beat of cadences. He wanted sonorities: chords that go nowhere, mists, reflections. This aesthetic is a wonderful playground for improvisers, because it frees you from the rules of resolution. Here are four tools.

1. The whole-tone scale

Six notes, each a whole step apart: C D E F♯ G♯ A♯. No half steps, therefore no leading note and no obvious tonic: everything floats. There are only two of them (one starting on C, the other on C♯). Used by Debussy in Voiles, it evokes dreams, water, mystery.

M:4/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=72
K:C
"C+" c d e ^f ^g ^a c'2 | ^a ^g ^f e d2 c2 |]

2. Parallel chords ("planing")

Instead of linking chords according to the rules of voice-leading, Debussy moves the same chord shape as a block, like a sliding brush. You can do it diatonically (the shape adapts to the notes of the scale) or chromatically (the exact shape is kept, which brings in accidentals).

M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=66
K:C
[CEG] [D^FA] [E^GB] [D^FA] | [CEG]4 |]

Here three major triads glide together (C, D, E major): the top melody is simple, but each note is "thickened" by its chord. Try it with seventh or ninth chords too.

3. Pentatonic washes

The pentatonic scale (the black keys!) played in rippling arpeggios, pedal down, over a low fifth: this is the "mist" of Nuages or Pagodes. You are meeting the tool of the very first lesson, the black keys, transfigured by pedal and softness.

M:4/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=69
K:F#
%%staves {RH LH}
V:RH clef=treble
V:LH clef=bass
[V:RH] c d f g a c' a g | f d c d f4 |]
[V:LH] [F,,C,]8 | [F,,C,]8 |]

4. Pedal, registers, dynamics

• Pedal as colour: let harmonies blend, change pedal only when the bass changes (or use half-pedals to clear the sound).
• Extreme registers: a very low held bass, crystalline notes up high, a wide emptiness in the middle. Space is an instrument.
• Pianissimo: most of Debussy's pages live between pp and p. Play close to the keys, with arm weight, not by striking.
• Elastic time: let it breathe, slow down before a new chord, don't be afraid of fermatas.

Exercise: a watercolour in three strokes

Start the impressionist track in C, or play unaccompanied with the pedal.

1. Mist (1 min). Left hand: a low fifth C–G held. Right hand: notes of the C pentatonic scale (C D E G A), slow, sparse, very soft.
2. Reflections (1 min). Pick a three-note chord shape and slide it along a little 4- or 5-note melody, in parallel chords.
3. Waves (1 min). Whole-tone scale: fast rises and falls, crescendo then decrescendo, pedal held.
4. Return (30 s). Go back to the opening mist and let the sound die away.

You have just improvised a little piece in ABCA form. Give it a title, as Debussy did (though at the end of his preludes!): "Fog on the pond", "Distant bells"…