Epistrophy Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A · Bars 3–6

Db7 D7 | Db7 D7 | Eb7 E7 | Eb7 E7

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.

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Start here Project 03 · Harmony

Play Epistrophy in JamShed

The whole form, not just these bars: JamShed’s trio — double bass, drums and piano — plays it with you at the tempo and in the key you choose. Loop the bars that trip you up, mute the instrument you play, share the link.

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Harmonic analysis

Key

D♭ major

Tonal center

Db

Confidence

Low

Chords analysed

8

Read in D♭ major, the key of the tune. Taken on its own, with nothing around it, this excerpt is just as easy to hear in F# major — a few bars are often not enough to fix a tonic, and that ambiguity is a real property of the music rather than a gap in the analysis.

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Db7	I7	Tonic	Db7 is the tonic, but built as a dominant seventh — the sound that defines the blues. The tonic keeps a b7 and stays at home anyway.	High
D7	subV7	Dominant	D7 is a tritone substitute for the dominant. It shares its tritone with Ab7 and slides down a semitone into Db.	High
Db7	I7	Tonic	Db7 is the tonic, but built as a dominant seventh — the sound that defines the blues. The tonic keeps a b7 and stays at home anyway.	High
D7	subV7	Dominant	D7 is a tritone substitute for the dominant. It shares its tritone with Ab7 and slides down a semitone into Db. Also readable as bII7.	Low
Eb7	V7/V	Dominant	Eb7 is functioning as V7/V: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of Ab, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at V instead. Also readable as II7.	Low
E7	subV7/ii	Dominant	E7 is a tritone substitute — subV7/ii. It carries the same tritone as Bb7, the real dominant of Eb, but resolves down a semitone instead of down a fifth. Also readable as bIII7.	High
Eb7	V7/V	Dominant	Eb7 is functioning as V7/V: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of Ab, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at V instead. Also readable as II7.	Low
E7	V7/bVI	Dominant	E7 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. Also readable as subV7/ii.	Low

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 →

The complete analysis of Epistrophy — every chord of the whole form, with its Roman numeral and its ii–V–Is marked on the chart — is in JamShed with the Practice Pass, ready to print. Open it in JamShed →

Why this example matters

Against D♭ the first two bars read I7 – subV7: D7 shares its tritone, F♯ and C, with A♭7, the real dominant, and slides down a half step instead of falling a fifth. When the pattern moves up to E♭7 and E7 the analyzer becomes less sure, rating some readings only possible — with no cadence anywhere, there is honestly more than one way to number it. Play just the thirds and sevenths: in D♭7 they are F and C♭, in D7 F♯ and C: both voices move up a half step and back. That tiny motion is the whole engine of the tune.

How the rest of Epistrophy goes

Thirty-two bars. The first eight are the excerpt’s pattern — D♭7 with D7, then E♭7 with E7; the next eight reverse the order; then a bridge on F♯ minor six and B7, the only stretch with real harmonic movement, before the second eight return. The melody is one small cell moved around, and the tune sounds simple until the half-step rocking has to stay in time at speed.

Epistrophy on record

Monk wrote it with the drummer Kenny Clarke in 1941, when both were in the house band at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem. The first recording was made by Cootie Williams’s orchestra in 1942 under the title “Fly Right”; Monk’s own version came out on Blue Note in 1948, and he went on to use the tune to close his sets.

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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Epistrophy — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

The books behind this page

Jazz Harmony

The Jazz Guitar Shortcut

Harmonic Narrative

The Jazz Roadmap Lite

Play Epistrophy in JamShed

Harmonic analysis

Why this example matters

How the rest of Epistrophy goes

Epistrophy on record

Analyze this progression

Related

Secondary dominants

Tritone substitution

Blues for Alice

All Blues

So What

Jazz chord progressions