The Girl from Ipanema Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A1 · Bars 1–8

Fmaj7 | Fmaj7 | G7 | G7 | Gm7 | Gb7 | Fmaj7 | Gb7

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

F major

Tonal center

F

Confidence

Medium

Chords analysed

8

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Fmaj7	I	Tonic	Fmaj7 is the tonic of F. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Fmaj7	I	Tonic	Fmaj7 is the tonic of F. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
G7	V7/V	Dominant	G7 is functioning as V7/V: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of C, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at V instead.	Low
G7	V7/V	Dominant	G7 is functioning as V7/V: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of C, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at V instead.	Low
Gm7	ii	Predominant	Gm7 is the ii chord of F: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	High
Gb7	subV7	Dominant	Gb7 is a tritone substitute for the dominant. It shares its tritone with C7 and slides down a semitone into F.	High
Fmaj7	I	Tonic	Fmaj7 is the tonic of F. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Gb7	subV7	Dominant	Gb7 is a tritone substitute for the dominant. It shares its tritone with C7 and slides down a semitone into F.	Medium

What the analyzer found in it

ii - subV7 - IGm7 - Gb7 - Fmaj7

A ii-V-I where the dominant has been replaced by its tritone substitute: Gb7 in place of C7. The bass walks down by semitone into Fmaj7.

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

Read in F major, these bars come out as I – V7/V – ii – subV7. Inside those 8 chords there is at least one secondary dominant and a tritone substitute. The shortest way in is a two-voice reduction: third and seventh only, slowly. G7 contributes B and F, and where that pair resolves is the whole story of the passage. You will meet the same move again in Blues for Alice, All Blues and So What, transposed and at a different pace.

How the rest of The Girl from Ipanema goes

The A sections are simple almost to the point of being sparse, which is deliberate and is what lets the bridge do its work. The bridge shifts to a key a semitone above the tonic without preparation, stays there long enough to become the new normal, and then works back down through a chain of ii-V pairs. That unannounced lift is the single most imitated device in bossa nova harmony, and hearing it as a modulation rather than as a colour is what separates playing this tune from playing at it.

The Girl from Ipanema on record

Jobim wrote it with Vinícius de Moraes in 1962. The 1964 recording by Stan Getz and João Gilberto, with Astrud Gilberto singing the English lyric almost by accident, became one of the best-selling jazz records ever made and put bossa nova into the American mainstream permanently. Its ubiquity has worked against it — it is now often dismissed as background music by people who have never looked at the bridge.

Analyze this progression

The excerpt is loaded and editable. Swap a chord for its tritone substitute, delete the preparation, borrow one from the parallel minor, and watch which numerals change and which do not.

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The Girl from Ipanema — 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 The Girl from Ipanema goes

The Girl from Ipanema on record

Analyze this progression

Related

Secondary dominants

Tritone substitution

Blues for Alice

All Blues

So What

Jazz chord progressions