How to Play the Root Db

Series Summary

Music has always been a part of all of us as human beings. This being the case we have devised ways to write it, read it and of course play it. We have developed terms for every musical scenario that might occur and ways to teach all of this as well. Things like minor and major, 7th chords, intervals and chords are all great examples of the way we like to organize things as a species. Improvisation is a great example of the speed at which our brains work. Very popular among jazz players, improvisation is a great tool to test your knowledge of the instrument as well as let go of some of the rules.

In this great video series our expert Ryan Larson, a great jazz pianist, shows us not only how to play in the key of Db and all the notes in that key but also how to instantly better our improvisational skills. You are only able to improvise with as much as you know so make sure the next time you're jamming with your friends you wow them with how well you know your instrument, whatever it might be!

Video Transcript

"Now we are going to take some brief lessons just going over some of the most basic scales and even some more complex scales utilized in the world today through classical music, jazz music, hip hop music, rock music. It's all over the place so we are just really boiling it down to the basic so you can see how everything is put together and the thing we are really focusing on today later in the lesson is the mode. There are 7 notes in the major scale and each note if you make that the root, it becomes different mode out of the major scale so we will show you really quickly. Here is your G flat major scale; all the black notes. So if I move up and make E flat through, it's another mode. If I make F through, it's another mode, G flat and so on. And each one of these modes has its own characteristics and color tone that come out of it. We are really going to go in and explore these color tones and the color tone of other basic scales so you can go and utilize them in your playing. When you come across them, you will understand the basic information behind them. "