But this blog post is about chord changes. This tune is another one the standards that is unsettled at the beginning ( see my previous post on "As Time Goes By" ) - the first 4 bars are a guaranteed train wreck - so I went through a bunch of different versions by well-know artists and compiled the variations. Even Ellington was laying down different versions - it's no wonder that no one really knows what to do on this song as the variations are fairly extreme. It is also curious, that in bar 5 (not shown on my manuscript below) is sometimes the iim7 and sometimes II7 (Dm7 or D7), but more often the minor 7, which was a real surprise. Note that Ellington's version #2, below, is also the version used by Louis Armstrong, Milt Jackson, The Inkspots, Ella Fitzgerald and Anne Murray. Here they all are:
This is a great example of all the different harmonic changes that can occur as a result of different arrangers and artists--this is a great study of re-harmonization that all students should seriously consider when trying to find their own "voice" or when coming up with different harmonic ideas instead of always sticking to the original lead sheet. It is imperative to know the original version, yet crucial to understand how to change it up. Great work, Steve! Love the blog. - Mel Shore
ReplyDeleteThis is great Steve, my fav is the second to last version and the last one. What's amazing with harmony and pitch influence is the overtone series between the notes and how that literally shifts the "sound" perception of very pitch. I find it very interesting in my compositional explorations the fact that writing with strict, implied or remotely referenced tonal contexts always have an impact on how intervlic material relates. For instance, a major 6th sounds like an inversion of a mnor third if it is presented in the context of a c major diatonic scale, ie : top voice melody is e d c b c and the bottom is c g c d e the 6th at the end shifts the perception of the c but it still sounds like a relationship of inversion. This fact of inversion is not true in music that has no such tonal reference and there the minor third and major 6th take on unique roles and function, the dissonance and consonant flow of such relationships must be approached from the point of view that the inversion does not assure the ear of consistency : Ie : assume a top voice d# f# c db and the following bass fragments bottom g# a c# c progressivly dissonant intervals, a bottom voice : ab g f e where the dissonace / consance fluxates and finally the bottom voice : g a eb f where 6ths alone are used harmonically. The inversions of these bass lines may seem interchangeable but actually the interchanged inversions of all these bottom melodic fragments do not produce a "similar" effect at all : a# d# b d, a# f g ab and f# a# e e.....hahaha, Molly is probably rolling over in her grave now Steve...time to play ball!
ReplyDeleteTroy - It'll take me a while to figure out your comment, I'm not sure I'm smart enough. ... thanks for posting!
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