Countdown Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A · Bars 1–4

Em7 F7 | Bbmaj7 Db7 | Gbmaj7 A7 | Dmaj7

This is a short excerpt quoted for analysis, not the full chart, and this composition is very likely still in copyright. Published versions and recordings disagree with each other about the rest of the tune, and often about these bars too.

The books behind this page

Every one of these tunes is assembled out of the same handful of harmonic resources. Jazz Harmony is those resources, explained in the order in which they build on each other.

Start here Project 03 · Harmony

Harmonic analysis

Key

D major

Tonal center

D

Confidence

High

Chords analysed

7

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Em7	ii	Predominant	Em7 is the ii chord of D: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	High
F7	V7/bVI	Dominant	F7 is functioning as V7/bVI: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of A#, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at bVI instead.	High
Bbmaj7	bVI	Modal interchange	Bbmaj7 is bVI, borrowed from the parallel minor. It is the most common modal interchange chord in the repertoire after minor iv.	Medium
Db7	V7/iii	Dominant	Db7 is functioning as V7/iii: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of F#, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at iii instead.	High
Gbmaj7	III	Chromatic	Gbmaj7 is a chromatic mediant of D — a major chord a third away, sharing one note and belonging to no shared key. It moves the harmony sideways rather than forward.	Low
A7	V7	Dominant	A7 is the dominant of D. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High
Dmaj7	I	Tonic	Dmaj7 is the tonic of D. It is where the progression is at rest.	High

What the analyzer found in it

major-third cycleF7 - Bbmaj7 - Db7

Roots moving by major thirds, dividing the octave into three equal parts. This is the Coltrane-changes device: no single key contains it, and each dominant tonicizes its own target.

major-third cycleDb7 - Gbmaj7 - A7

Roots moving by major thirds, dividing the octave into three equal parts. This is the Coltrane-changes device: no single key contains it, and each dominant tonicizes its own target.

V - IA7 - Dmaj7

The progression closes with an authentic cadence in D.

modal interchangeBbmaj7

Modal interchange: Bbmaj7 come from the parallel mode of D, not from the key itself.

High, medium and low next to each numeral are judgements about musical context, not probabilities. A low rating marks a bar that can honestly be read more than one way. How the ratings are decided →

Why this example matters

Against a tonic of D major the passage numbers as ii – V7/bVI – bVI – V7/iii – III – V7 – I. Inside those 7 chords there is at least one secondary dominant, a chord borrowed from the parallel mode and roots moving by major thirds. Strip it to two notes per chord, the third and the seventh, and play it under tempo. F7 gives you A and D#; follow that pair from chord to chord and the voice leading becomes audible in a way the root motion never makes it. Once you can hear it here, it is hard to miss in Autumn Leaves, All The Things You Are and Tune Up.

How the rest of Countdown goes

This is Tune Up with cadences inserted into the gaps. The original tune gives each ii-V-I a comfortable amount of room; this one fills that room with two further cadences in unrelated keys before allowing the original one to arrive. The underlying destinations are unchanged, which is the reason the piece is coherent at all — strip out the insertions and you are back at the older tune. Nobody learns this without learning Tune Up first, and attempting it the other way round is the usual reason players conclude it is impossible.

Countdown on record

From the same 1959 sessions as Giant Steps. The tune opens with an unaccompanied drum passage before the harmony enters, an arrangement choice that is almost always reproduced. Together with Giant Steps it forms the standard pair for demonstrating the substitution scheme: one piece where the three-key cycle is the form, and one where it is imposed on a form that already existed.

Analyze this progression

Load the progression and start altering it. Every edit is re-read from scratch, so you can test a hunch about one chord without rewriting the rest.

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Countdown — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

The books behind this page

Jazz Harmony

Harmonic Narrative

Jazz Guitar Comping

Harmonic analysis

What the analyzer found in it

Why this example matters

How the rest of Countdown goes

Countdown on record

Analyze this progression

Related

Modal interchange

Secondary dominants

ii-V-I

Autumn Leaves

All The Things You Are

Tune Up

Jazz chord progressions