FLY ME TO THE MOON lesson (tune structure)

Hi Hayden, still trying to test myself & get to grips with song form thru your various lessons ,can I ask advice regarding Fly Me To The Moon please?

it has vi-ii-v-i progressions a good first step to help remembering the song form ,but what is the Harmonically correct way to remember the Fmaj7 (Bar 5) chord as when trying to commit it to memory …?

Relate it to C major, or, Relative Minor (A) Harmony or neither of those?

I can guess the Fmaj7 a : iv Maj 7 (Aeolian) relating to C Major.

Bars 6-8: a Minor ii-v-i in A min (…?)

Bar 12: And are we calling the Emin7 -A7 a ‘V -i’ or a ‘ii-v’

Bar 16: Bmin7(b5) - E7 a minor ii-v ?

Is there a simpler way to join all these up ?

Any tips much appreciated:)

Niall.

1 Like

Hi Niall.

Good questions here.

Memorising tunes like this has 2 key benefits:

  1. It helps us to simplify the form for memorisation purposes

  2. It helps us to transpose the form quickly - if working with a singer for example.

Here is my take on your questions:

I would relate this to A Minor which is the key of the tune.

The easiest way for me to think of this would be b6 major. Remembering that detail would allow us to find the chord in any key.

For example, if we transposed the tune to the key of E Minor, that chord would be Cmaj7.

Yes exactly right.

A 251 in the key of the song.

This would be a 25 of iv.

Look at where the harmony is moving… to D Minor.

D is the 4th of A Minor which is the key of the tune.

So we could say 25 to iv minor.

I think your analysis is brilliant Niall. The more of this you do, you will see many similarities between different tunes and standards.

When doing this kind of analysis, the goal is to reduce the amount of information by grouping chords into ‘chunks’ of harmony.

You may have noticed the 3rd line contains an interesting progression: 4-7-3-6. This progression could take us all the way back to the 1 with an additional 251 on the end 4-7-3-6-2-5-1

Instead we have 4-7-3-6, then again 25 of iv.

That’s a useful detail to remember and joins up a good chunk of the form!

Hope this helps and if you’d like me to elaborate further let me know.

Cheers!
Hayden

1 Like

That’s a great help thank you, alot clicks into place once you explain it & I relate everything to the A minor scale on this one Hayden.

Thanks again :slight_smile:

1 Like

Hey
The key center is really Am ?? i would have say rather Cmajor because the pretty joyceful mood and the end of the song in Cmajor

Even they are relative keys minor major

Can you tell us a bit more about Hayden ?
thanks

my analyse would be rather in Cmajor

6 2 5 1
4 2/6 5/6 6
2 5 1 2/2 5/2
2 5 1 2/6 5/6

1 Like

Yes very good point Pierre… that is a much simpler way of analysing the tune.

Seeing your analysis makes mine look very convoluted… I need to work on my numeric analysis!

@niall - I agree with Pierre’s numeric analysis here:

That makes much more sense to me now with the F Major in bar 5 being the modulation to the IV which is a very common cadence found in jazz standards.

I made the mistake of analysing the tune in relation to the starting chord when in fact it is starting on the relative minor which is A Minor in the key of C Major.

There are parts of the form that are in A Minor, such as the B-7b5 / E7alt, but as you say @Pierrot - the overall ‘mood’ of the tune is joyful and happy sounding which is a strong indicator that the tune is written in a major key.

As you correctly point out Pierre, we should analyse the tune based on where the harmony ends, and that final point of resolution, which is C Major.

Thanks for correcting me there!

1 Like

OK, Hayden/Pierrot ,confused now about the 2nd line of Pierrot analysis using Key of C Major.
I get the line one: 6251. Understood.

FMaj7 is 4(IV) Understood.

How is B-7b5 the 2, In CMaJ it’s the 7… is it not?

Can you explain line two please:
[FMaj7-Bm7b5-E7-A-7] is 42/65/66 .I don’t get it.

Have we changed key here or something (D-) ?

Line three: [D-7 -G7- CMaj7] is 251 Understood.
Line three: [D-7 -G7- CMaj7-F7] 2512 Not understood.

Can you briefly outline Pierrot’s analysis please?

thanks,

Niall.

Hi Niall,

@Pierrot will correct me if I’m wrong here… here’s my understanding of it:

When there is a slash, it indicates that the key, or tonal centre has changed.

So when we see 2/6 - that means the 2 of the 6 chord in the key of the song.

The key of the song is C Major.

The 6 in the key of C major is A-, and so the 2 of 6 would be B-7b5.

Similarly, 5/6 means the 5 of 6 in the key of the song.

In the key of the song, the 6 is A- and so the 5 of A- would be E7.

The final 6 just means A- … and so yes, this line is a modulation to the relative minor.

The aim of numeric analysis is to create the simplest possible ‘shorthand’ of the form - which Pierre did very succinctly with his analysis.

I’ll look over this again in the morning and I’m sure @Pierrot will share his insight.

This is a wonderful post so let’s continue the discussion.

9 posts were split to a new topic: Transposing Songs - “The Nearness Of You”

7 posts were split to a new topic: Anytune Pro App