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