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 has given me the simplest and clearest explanation of how music works and provided me with the practical resources to develop the skills and confidence required to play the music I have always wanted to, jam with other musicians, improvise and compose my own music. Before discovering IFR, all aspects of music were a mystery to me, shrouded in inaccessible theory and mired by futile and frustrating practice regimes."
– review by Paul Spence — Melbourne, Australia
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!
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.
Here are some of the things you will learn along the way:
- A refreshingly clear understanding of modern harmony that will give you an advantage in every aspect of your musical life
- The ability to understand music by ear and to improvise beautiful, melodic solos over any song you hear
- How to recognize the chords to any song as easily as you can see the colors in a painting
- The secret of those “musical geniuses” who can listen to any song once and immediately know how to play it in any key
- How to play directly from your imagination, expressing your own musical ideas exactly as you hear them in your mind
- How to improvise with complete freedom over jazz standards, blues songs, pop music or any other style you would like to play
- How to create “jam sessions” that let your friends and family enjoy improvising together
- A step-by-step method to get you started composing your own original music
- A complete learning system organized for you, so that you can stop worrying about “what to practice” and just enjoy making music each day, knowing you are on the right path
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Start your free trial!
Choose the plan that’s right for you and start your creative journey with a 7-day free trial:
All plans include:
- Unlimited access for 7-day free trial
- Access to 200+ video lessons across all our courses
- Complete ear training audio library
- 1,900+ jam tracks (150+ originals in all 12 keys)
- One cohesive method where everything works together
- Growing library of student Q&As, creative prompts, and mindset videos
- Peaceful, clutter-free learning space
- Complete creative freedom to learn at your own pace
"The course is worth every penny—it has not only accelerated my progress but also opened a whole new world of musical understanding."
– review by Ana Swindall — Alabama, USA
How your free trial works
- No Payment Due Now
Frequently asked questions
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.
The IFR method includes video courses, audio ear training materials, jam tracks for practice, and step-by-step exercises that guide you through understanding how music really works. You'll learn to recognize chord progressions, create your own melodies and solos, and develop the confidence to jam with other musicians. Throughout this process, you'll gain a deep understanding of musical concepts by experiencing them directly through sound and practice.
Ready to get started? Start your free trial!
- Unlimited access for 7-day free trial
- Access to 200+ video lessons across all our courses
- Complete ear training audio library
- 1,900+ jam tracks (150+ originals in all 12 keys)
- One cohesive method where everything works together
- Growing library of articles, Q&As, song analysis
- Peaceful, clutter-free learning space
- Complete creative freedom to learn at your own pace
All plans come with a free trial period so you can experience Improvise for Real before starting your paid membership of choice. If you decide not to continue your subscription, you can cancel anytime during your trial by going to your Account page and clicking "Cancel Subscription" and you will not be charged.
