Each W represents a whole step (or whole tone), and each H represents a half step (or halftone). Start with the root note (A) and follow the pattern W-W-H-W-W-W-H. But if you want to be a well-rounded musician, it’s a good idea to get familiar with how scales, chords, etc., relate to one another.Įven if you don’t know it off the top of your head, you can discover the A♭ major scale using the major scale pattern of whole-step and half-step intervals. Plenty of musicians simply memorize scales without understanding how they work. Structure and Formula of the A Flat Major Scale These include Beethoven’s Piao Sonata No. That said, quite a few notable musical works have been written in the key. If you write music and want to create a song that sounds unique, you might consider writing it in the key of A♭ major. In 1806, poet and composer Christian Schubart wrote that A flat major was the “key of the grave” and that “death, grave, putrefaction, judgment, eternity lie in its radius.” It’s moody for a major key, and you’ll start to get a sense of that as you practice the A flat major scale on the piano keyboard.
However, as you master this and other scales, you’ll become a versatile musician who can write and improvise in any key. Felix Mendelssohn and John Field each wrote one piano concerto in A-flat.The A flat major scale likely won’t be among the first you learn on the piano. A-flat major is the major key with the most flats that Domenico Scarlatti used in his keyboard sonatas, though he used it only twice– in K.
Arnold Bax's last symphony is also in the same key. 1 in A-flat major is probably the best-known symphony in that key. 1 in C minor, however, the timpani are retuned between the first movement in C minor and the following in A-flat major.Įdward Elgar's Symphony No. With hand-tuned timpani, there is no time to retune the timpani to A flat and E flat for the slow second movement in A flat. 5 in C minor has the timpani set to C and G for the first movement. Since A-flat major was not often chosen as the main key for orchestral music of the 18th century, passages or movements in the key often kept the timpani tuned the same way as they were in the movement before it. This was also followed by Antonín Dvořák in his only C minor symphony and Anton Bruckner in his first two C minor symphonies. Twenty-four of Frédéric Chopin's piano pieces are in A-flat major, more than any other key.Ĭharles-Marie Widor considered A-flat major to be the second best key for flute music.īeethoven chose A-flat major as the key of the slow movement for most of his C minor works. Its relative minor is F minor and its parallel minor is A-flat minor. Ascending and descending A-flat major scale.Ī ♭ major or A-flat major is a major scale that starts on A-flat.
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