A-flat major

A^b major

Relative key	F minor
Parallel key	Ab minor
Component pitches
Ab, Bb, C, Db, Eb, F, G

Also see: A-flat minor, or A major.

A-flat major is a major scale based on A-flat, consisting of the pitches A-flat, B-flat, C, D-flat, E-flat, F, G and A-flat. Its key signature has four flats (see below: Scales and keys).

Its relative minor is F minor, and its parallel minor is A flat minor. [The note A-flat is a half-tone between G and A.]

The key is said to have a peaceful, serene feel, and was used quite often by Franz Schubert. Twenty-four of Frédéric Chopin's piano pieces are in A flat major, more than any other key.

Beethoven chose A flat major as the key for a C minor work's slow movement in every C minor work he wrote except his third piano concerto (whose slow movement is instead in E major), a practice which Anton Bruckner imitated in his first two C minor symphonies and also Antonín Dvořák in his only C minor symphony.

File:A-flat Major Scale.PNG

Ascending and descending A-flat major scale.

Since A flat major was not often chosen as the main key for orchestral works of the 18th Century, passages or movements in the key often retained the timpani settings of the preceding movement. For example, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor has the timpani set to C and G for the first movement. 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. In Bruckner's Symphony No. 1 in C minor, however, the timpani are retuned between the first movement in C minor and the following in A flat major.

Charles-Marie Widor considered A-flat major to be the second best key for flute music.

Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in A flat major is the only symphony in that key in the standard orchestral repertoire. A flat major is the flattest major key Domenico Scarlatti used in his keyboard sonatas, though he used it only twice, in K. 127 and K. 130. Felix Mendelssohn and John Field each wrote one piano concerto in A flat (Mendelssohn's being for two pianos); they had the horns and trumpet tuned to E flat.

Well-known contemporary music in this key

• All I Want Is You - U2
• All Through the Night - Cyndi Lauper
• American Idiot - Green Day
• Army - Ben Folds Five
• Both Sides Now - Judy Collins
• Clocks - Coldplay
• The End of the Innocence - Don Henley (Done in F Major by Bruce Hornsby)
• Every Breath You Take - The Police
• Goodbye Stranger - Supertramp
• Grazing in the Grass - Friends of Distinction
• I'll Never Get Over You Getting Over Me - Expose
• In the Mood - Glenn Miller
• In Too Deep - Genesis
• Kissing Rain - Roch Voisine
• Like a Rock - Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band
• Linus and Lucy - Vince Guaraldi Trio
• The Living Years - Mike and the Mechanics
• The Sims Theme - Jerry Martin
• Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire - David Foster
• Macarena - Los Del Rio
• Maple Leaf Rag - Scott Joplin
• One Sweet Day - Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey
• Over My Head (Cable Car) - The Fray
• Slide - Goo Goo Dolls
• Somebody to Love - Queen

External links

• A Flat Major - Free A Flat Major Scale Print Out with Arpeggios and Broken Chords for Piano with Fingering