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Playing Piano Melodies in Ab (A Flat)

You are viewing an Expert Village Video Series:

Learn some great tips on how to play melodies on the piano in the key of Ab major (A flat) with expert instruction from a professional jazz composer in this free video series on music theory and piano techniques.

There are 16 videos in this series:
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Views: 6,796 Videos in Series: 16

Tags: chords, theory, piano, keys, scale, notes, major, minor, melodies

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Summary: Music is a vibrant and necessary part of the human experience—even a salve for the human condition. Since the first sound wave burst forth from the womb of creation, we have come up with ways to write, record and play musical compositions. We’ve invented fancy-sounding Italian names for every musical idea we could imagine, and collected these into a body of knowledge and practice which we call “music theory,” complete with a circle of fifths. Concepts like minor and major, intervals and chords are all fine examples of the way we, as a species, like to catalogue and classify. Yet, improvisation is an instance where we play at the speed of thought, without classification or nomenclature. Very popular among jazz players, improvisation is a great tool to expose one’s true knowledge (or lack thereof) of a particular musical instrument—as well as let go of some of the traditions of the past to allow for new and different modes of creative expression.

In these free jazz piano lessons on video, pianist Ryan Larson teaches us not only how to improve our freestyle technique, but also how to read and write music—since you are only able to improvise with what you know. Keyboard lessons include how to play 5th chords, how to do chord progressions in the key of Ab major, how to use sharps, flats and intervals, how to play bass lines, how to change chord voicings, and how to play different melodies on the piano.

About the Expert

Expert: Ryan Larson is a young jazz composer whose teaching technique focuses on the basics of music theory in all twelve keys. When applying his twelve-key technique to understanding the logic behind reading and improvising over the harmonic series, students can learn every basic chord just by running one song through all twelve keys.

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