If I Ain't Got You
Alicia Keys
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Browse piano sheets by Alicia Keys on Zen Virtual Piano. Alicia Keys is a pianist and songwriter who wrote and produced If I Ain't Got You. She says she was seven when she started learning piano, and that at that age it was not something she found particularly exciting, as the lessons grew from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. At 12 she enrolled in the Professional Performing Arts School, where she took music, dance and theater classes and majored in choir. Piano lessons that grew longer, beside the piano-driven ballad she later wrote and produced, may suggest the instrument stayed central across her life. In 1994 manager Jeff Robinson met 13-year-old Keys, who took part in his brother's youth organization, Teens in Motion. Clive Davis took notice of her, and she joined his Arista Records in 1998. Two years later Davis started J Records, and she was among the first artists signed to that new label. Her debut album, Songs in A Minor, came out in 2001. A meeting with a manager in 1994, beside a signing in 1998 and a debut album in 2001, may point to several years between early notice and a record deal. If I Ain't Got You is a torch song that dismisses materialism as inferior to love, and musically it is a piano-driven soul and R&B ballad drawing on jazz stylings. Against her piano, Keys chose to add live drums from Steve Jordan and guitar from Hugh McCracken. To keep a "hip-hop edge", Kerry Brothers Jr., her collaborator and then-partner, blended his own drum programming into the live drums. At the 47th Annual Grammy Awards in 2005 the song took Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and also received a Song of the Year nomination. A piano-driven ballad, beside live drums and programming blended by Kerry Brothers Jr., may hint at a mix of soul, jazz and hip-hop in the recording. Hell's Kitchen reached Off Broadway in 2023, following roughly 13 years of development. The coming-of-age production is inspired by Keys's life at age 17, and it features her songs. In 2003 Keys co-founded Keep a Child Alive, a nonprofit organization fighting HIV and AIDS, where she is Global Ambassador. A stage show about her life at 17, beside a nonprofit co-founded in 2003 and her role as its Global Ambassador, may point to work reaching beyond recording.
Browse piano sheets by Alicia Keys on Zen Virtual Piano.
Alicia Keys is a pianist and songwriter who wrote and produced If I Ain't Got You. She says she was seven when she started learning piano, and that at that age it was not something she found particularly exciting, as the lessons grew from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. At 12 she enrolled in the Professional Performing Arts School, where she took music, dance and theater classes and majored in choir. Piano lessons that grew longer, beside the piano-driven ballad she later wrote and produced, may suggest the instrument stayed central across her life.
In 1994 manager Jeff Robinson met 13-year-old Keys, who took part in his brother's youth organization, Teens in Motion. Clive Davis took notice of her, and she joined his Arista Records in 1998. Two years later Davis started J Records, and she was among the first artists signed to that new label. Her debut album, Songs in A Minor, came out in 2001. A meeting with a manager in 1994, beside a signing in 1998 and a debut album in 2001, may point to several years between early notice and a record deal.
If I Ain't Got You is a torch song that dismisses materialism as inferior to love, and musically it is a piano-driven soul and R&B ballad drawing on jazz stylings. Against her piano, Keys chose to add live drums from Steve Jordan and guitar from Hugh McCracken. To keep a "hip-hop edge", Kerry Brothers Jr., her collaborator and then-partner, blended his own drum programming into the live drums. At the 47th Annual Grammy Awards in 2005 the song took Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and also received a Song of the Year nomination. A piano-driven ballad, beside live drums and programming blended by Kerry Brothers Jr., may hint at a mix of soul, jazz and hip-hop in the recording.
Hell's Kitchen reached Off Broadway in 2023, following roughly 13 years of development. The coming-of-age production is inspired by Keys's life at age 17, and it features her songs. In 2003 Keys co-founded Keep a Child Alive, a nonprofit organization fighting HIV and AIDS, where she is Global Ambassador. A stage show about her life at 17, beside a nonprofit co-founded in 2003 and her role as its Global Ambassador, may point to work reaching beyond recording.
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Common questions
Alicia Keys is a pianist and songwriter who wrote and produced If I Ain't Got You and released Songs in A Minor in 2001.
Keys says she was seven when she started learning piano, and the lessons grew from 45 minutes to an hour and a half.
Against her piano, Keys brought in Steve Jordan on live drums and Hugh McCracken on guitar. Kerry Brothers Jr. then blended the live drums with his own drum programming.
Hell's Kitchen is a coming-of-age production inspired by Keys's life at age 17 that made its debut in 2023, appearing Off Broadway, and it features her songs.