fly me to the moon commentary

[@artlevinesukulelepage9222]

How to play G7b9. First, the famous saying "less is more". In this case, you start with G7, which can be expressed with just two notes: B & F. So that leaves lots of room, since you've still two strings left. A complete G7 chord might be given as G B D F A (or Ab for b9) C (or (C# for #11 or Db for b5) E (or Eb or D# (b13 or #5). Seven notes, from which you pick what you want to get the right colour. I don't usually differentiate a diminished 7th chord from a 7b9 chord, since they've got the same (important) notes. A lot of these chord-names sound forbidding, but if you understand the theory, and what you can omit while still respecting the basic sound, it turns out that they're no big deal. They sound cool, though. Then again, it's a chord vocabulary that transmits a particular harmonic language or dialect, which a lot of uke players who just like strumming triads and the odd seventh chord wouldn't likely have much use for.

[@tin-pan-alan]

Yes, from what I was taught, to have a 9th chord you just have to keep the 3rd, 7th, and 9th, and you can forget about the root and the 5th, and it will still have the same effect. Sometimes I like playing or at least programming a bass line to help define the chords better. I guess if you wanted to you could overdub and use all the notes you want, lol.

[@artlevinesukulelepage9222]

@@tin-pan-alan That's right. So a G9 could be 455x, for example. From a chord-melody point of point, what's important is to use voicings that have the melody note on top, so that gets into a whole different way of thinking.

[@chrisfrazer1830]

Ohhhhh. Good explanation. It's so weird that often what we usually hear is not like the original composers idea. The harmony differences are not as noticeable to me as the time signature difference. Nice educational component!

[@tin-pan-alan]

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it.

[@artlevinesukulelepage9222]

Hi Alan, I looked at that list of Bart Howard songs and didn't know a single one. I think he may have been a one-hit wonder. Anyhow, some interesting comments. Maybe you point this out somewhere, but the Kaye Ballard version retains the 3/4 metre in the chorus. And I'm not sure why people always skip the verse, because it's quite nice. I guess that's the general fate of pop music of that time, esp after swing bands and jazz musicians got involved. Apparently it was Quincy Jones who did the 4/4 conversion, is that right?

[@tin-pan-alan]

I don't know. I thought maybe it was Frank Sinatra who decided to change it. I'd have to track down a bunch of recordings and see at what point it changed. I did that once for "Seven Bridges Road," the famous Eagles song which isn't actually their song, but their version is really a cover of a cover. It also started out in 3/4 and got changed to 4/4 by a guy named Ian Mathews, and the Eagles just did a cover version of Mathews version.

[@artlevinesukulelepage9222]

@@tin-pan-alan I just read the Quincy Jones reference somewhere, when I was working on this tune. He worked with Frank Sinatra, but I don't know what the time-line would have been. More research needed here.

[@artlevinesukulelepage9222]

Gm6 0201 is also Em7b5. Either way, the next chord is usually some form of A7, making this into a standard ii-V in D minor, most likely. The interesting question is this: when a chord can equally well have two or three or four different names, is there any logic behind calling it one name as opposed to another? To answer this question, it's best to ask yourself, taking this case as an example, whether E or G would sound better in the bass. The only way to find out is to listen to both of them, maybe by trying to sing the bass notes under consideration.

[@tin-pan-alan]

Yes, when I was in college our teacher would spend a lot of time on this very question, what should we really call this chord? We would have to take into consideration where the music came from and where it went. Sometimes it ended with the professor shrugging and saying, "it's hard to know" or something like that.

[@artlevinesukulelepage9222]

@@tin-pan-alan Yes, sometimes you might have a choice of a couple of bass notes, and the effect would be fine either way. For a diminished seventh chord, it can be really hard to decide. Thinking about 0201 some more, it could be Gmin6, Emin7b5, C9, A7b9sus, F#7b9#5. The trick is to able to "prove" each one by contextualizing it in a chord progression. For example, F#7b9#5, try putting this on repeat: 4222, 2222 , 1102, 0201. The chords are Bmin, Bmin7, C#min7, F#7b9#5. So it's really just a fancy V chord in a I - ii - V - I formula.

[@tin-pan-alan]

@@artlevinesukulelepage9222 Right. In the case of this song, I called it a Gm6 because that's how it was labeled on the sheet music. But on a song I'm working on now for the Johnny Mercer theme, they "simplified" the chords, I guess, and some of the chords they used don't actually reflect the music, so I changed them for my lead sheet.

[@artlevinesukulelepage9222]

@@tin-pan-alan One thing you notice a lot with the uke chords added to sheet music is that the uke player is assigned the top part of the chord. For example, they tell you to play an A minor, but if you check out the piano part, you see that there's an F# down there, which changes the colour, the direction, etc. So it's interesting, because I guess at one time they assumed that there would often be a piano player present to keep things on track. Or maybe they didn't really care, as long as someone bought the music. But nowadays, I figure uke players hardly ever work with pianists, so when it comes to using sheet music, you have to keep your eyes open. A lot of those triads aren't really triads.