Honeysuckle Rose Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis | Niels Dalgaard
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Honeysuckle Rose
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Fats Waller · 1929 · F major · AABA, 32 bars

Honeysuckle Rose — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Three bars of the same ii-V before the tonic is allowed to arrive. Waller uses repetition where other writers use motion, and the delay is the joke: you know exactly where it is going and it will not go there.

ii-V-I

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A1 · Bars 1–4

Gm7 C7 | Gm7 C7 | Gm7 C7 | F6

This is a short excerpt, not the full chart. The composition dates from 1929 and is old enough that it is very likely in the public domain in the United States, which is why the excerpt runs longer here — but copyright status varies by territory and by edition, so treat that as context, not as legal advice.

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

Jazz Harmony

From tradition to the expectation framework · For any instrument Project 05 · Harmony

Harmonic Narrative

A practical method for creating and understanding harmonic progressions through expectation Project 04 · Jazz guitar

Jazz Guitar Comping

Creating direction through harmony, rhythm and the expectation framework

Harmonic analysis

Key
F major
Tonal center
F
Confidence
High
Chords analysed
7
ChordRoman numeralFunctionWhat it is doingConfidence
Gm7iiPredominantGm7 is the ii chord of F: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.High
C7V7DominantC7 is the dominant of F. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.High
Gm7iiPredominantGm7 is the ii chord of F: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.High
C7V7DominantC7 is the dominant of F. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.High
Gm7iiPredominantGm7 is the ii chord of F: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.High
C7V7DominantC7 is the dominant of F. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.High
F6ITonicF6 is the tonic of F. It is where the progression is at rest.High

What the analyzer found in it

ii - V7Gm7 - C7

A ii-V pointing at F, which never arrives. The preparation is complete, the resolution is not.

ii - V7Gm7 - C7

A ii-V pointing at F, which never arrives. The preparation is complete, the resolution is not.

ii - V7 - IGm7 - C7 - F6

A complete ii-V-I in F. Predominant, dominant, tonic: the sentence jazz harmony is built out of.

V - IC7 - F6

The progression closes with an authentic cadence in F.

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

In F major the excerpt reads ii – V7 – I. Inside those 7 chords there is a complete ii-V-I. Play it slowly with only two voices — the third and seventh of each chord. In C7 those are E and Bb, and watching where that pair goes next tells you more about the progression than the root movement does. The same device turns up in Autumn Leaves, All The Things You Are and Tune Up, in other keys and at other tempos.

How the rest of Honeysuckle Rose goes

The A sections rock back and forth between a ii-V pair and the tonic without ever going anywhere else, which is unusually static for a song of its era and gives the melody a riff-like quality. The bridge supplies all the movement, stepping to the subdominant and working back. Because the A harmony is so repetitive, this is a good tune for practising a single idea against a fixed cadence — and a poor one for anyone who needs the chords to generate variety.

Honeysuckle Rose on record

Fats Waller wrote it in 1929 with lyricist Andy Razaf. Charlie Parker’s “Scrapple from the Apple” borrows its A sections while taking the bridge from elsewhere, which is worth knowing before playing either. Waller’s own recordings are the model for the stride left hand this tune invites, and they are considerably faster than most modern versions.

Analyze this progression

Take these bars into the analyzer and interfere with them. The fastest way to learn what a chord was doing is to remove it and read what the analysis says instead.

Open in Jazz Harmony Analyzer →

Related

ii-V-I

What this device is, and the other standards in the library that use it.

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Autumn Leaves

Joseph Kosma · 1945 · B♭ major / G minor

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All The Things You Are

Jerome Kern · 1939 · A♭ major

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Tune Up

Miles Davis · 1953 · D major

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