Timeline for How would this chord from "I'll See You In My Dreams" best be analyzed?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 13, 2020 at 15:28 | vote | accept | Lennon_Ashton | ||
| Nov 1, 2019 at 1:46 | comment | added | Lennon_Ashton | Thank you so much for this excellent analysis! Lots of really interesting stuff to take in there. Much appreciated! | |
| Oct 30, 2019 at 21:50 | comment | added | Athanasius | @piiperi: I'm not criticizing your "fixed" version. I in fact provided my own "fixed" version by playing with the melody a bit, which is I think more pedestrian and even more stereotypical. As for "uglification," dominant seventh chords that don't resolve and instead are followed by other dominant sevenths that lead somewhere else has been a staple ever since baroque opera recitatives, which are full of them. Romantic period composers did it too, which the composer here learned from. If you think the A7 is ugly harmony, I wonder what you think of the links to the original 1924 version I gave? | |
| Oct 30, 2019 at 8:37 | comment | added | danmcb | This is not 50's style "jazz harmony". It is a popular song from the 1920's which became a jazz standard. There are literally countless examples of this kind of sequence from many, many composers, in songs that have been covered by countless artists, including such as Django Reinhardt who clearly loved it enough to record it many times without having any problem with the A7. It may not be to your taste, but I don't think it is reasonable to characterise it as an "uglification". However, you are entitled to your opinion. | |
| Oct 30, 2019 at 6:53 | comment | added | piiperi Reinstate Monica | Maybe I need to add, I was actually trying to show a smoother and more stereotypical version. I think you need to know basics to understand variations of them. The idea of jazz harmony is, IMO, to take something simple like a straight line from point A to B, and then offset and twist the line to make it less clear what is happening. Add details and obfuscation to a simple thing to make it more interesting. To see the forest from the trees you need to know the basic straight-line plot behind the added twists. I think my "fixed" version could help someone understand other versions. | |
| Oct 30, 2019 at 6:03 | comment | added | piiperi Reinstate Monica | I could never deliberately insert a clear uglification like that in a song. :) I don't want to hear stuff like that, it's just awful. People have weird tastes! :D | |
| Oct 30, 2019 at 4:21 | comment | added | danmcb | "The power of dominant seventh chords is that they can pull you any which way, and they can turn on a dime. " yes precisely. Yet another great example is After You've Gone (which has a few similarities to this tune). There you have a II7 chord right before the last four bars - but the next chord is a I chord, not the "expected" V. Pivoting around on dom7 chords is a favourite trick of these guys, and the "cycle of fifths" idea rather misses the point. "that A7 isn't duct tape -- it's the most interesting progression of the entire song". Exactly. Great explanation, thank you. | |
| Oct 30, 2019 at 1:30 | history | edited | Athanasius | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
grammar correction
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| Oct 30, 2019 at 1:24 | history | edited | Athanasius | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added link and background
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| Oct 30, 2019 at 1:11 | history | answered | Athanasius | CC BY-SA 4.0 |