As a child, I recall experiencing the joy and wonder of exploring and improvising on the piano at age 10.
I spent many happy hours playing through whole albums of pop music in the long Christmas holidays.
I hadn’t been taught that – I simply explored what was there. Lots of sheet music for me to play.
There was so much to learn in playing through the albums cover to cover.
It was a big part of the spark to improvise. I took parts of the bass line (left hand) and made up the right hand.
Voila! I had a new song.
This is what artists do. They borrow parts of something good and build on it and make it their own. Not plagiarism, but pure Invention. And Reinvention. And Reinvention.
In the Xmas holidays or any holiday, this is an ideal thing to do.
Actually, it’s simply exploratory play and is good fun anytime!