Medford musician Emily O’Brien is offering a series of five online Sunday evening workshops titled “Making it up: Improvising, ornamenting, harmonizing, and playing what isn’t there.” Think you have to be born with a special talent to play music that isn’t on the page? Think again! Just like learning to read between the lines or draw pictures of imaginary objects, anyone can learn to play notes that aren’t on the page. In this series, Emily will systematically break down improvisation and focus each class on a specific aspect of making stuff up. These exercises are also great for improving your command of harmony and chords, and for your listening and ensemble skills,

Today’s opening session is on Ornamentation. Subsequent class topics will be Harmonizing a melody (April 4), Playing from a lead sheet (April 11), Improvising to a ground bass or chord progression (April 18), and Putting it all together (April 25).

Cost is $80 for the series. Register on O’Brien’s website: https://www.emilysdomain.org/Recorderland/product/making-it-up/