Maiden Voyage Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A1 · Bars 1–8 · each symbol lasts two bars

D7sus4 | D7sus4 | F7sus4 | F7sus4

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

Bb major

Tonal center

Bb

Confidence

Low

Chords analysed

4

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
D7sus4	V7/vi	Dominant	D7sus4 is functioning as V7/vi: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of G, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at vi instead.	Low
D7sus4	V7/vi	Dominant	D7sus4 is functioning as V7/vi: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of G, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at vi instead.	Low
F7sus4	V7	Dominant	F7sus4 is the dominant of Bb. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High
F7sus4	V7	Dominant	F7sus4 is the dominant of Bb. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High

What the analyzer found in it

half cadenceF7sus4

The progression stops on the dominant of Bb — a half cadence. It is unfinished on purpose.

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

Numbered against Bb major, the excerpt is V7/vi – V7. Inside those 4 chords there is at least one secondary dominant and a chord borrowed from the parallel mode. Play it slowly and hold each chord until you can sing the note that wants to move. In a progression with no dominant, that note is what carries the phrase. Blues for Alice, All Blues and So What use the same device, which is the argument for learning it once properly rather than three times by accident.

How the rest of Maiden Voyage goes

Four chords, eight bars each, thirty-two bars in total, and every one of the four is a suspended sonority that refuses to declare whether it is major or minor. Because none of them resolves, the form has no gravitational centre — the chords are a sequence of places rather than a path to one. The written melody uses very few notes and long values, which is the correct model for improvising on it: the piece rewards patience and punishes anyone who tries to fill it with the vocabulary that works on cadences.

Maiden Voyage on record

Recorded by Herbie Hancock in 1965 as the title track of an album whose pieces were all conceived around the sea. The quartet of suspended chords was unusual enough at the time that the tune is routinely cited as a turning point in how jazz composers used ambiguity. It has since become a standard, which is slightly odd for a piece with no cadence in it, and it is now often a student’s first encounter with music that cannot be analysed in terms of arrival.

Analyze this progression

Open these chords in the analyzer and change them. Move one chord, substitute a dominant, take the ii away — the reading updates and tells you what you just did.

Open in Jazz Harmony Analyzer →

Maiden Voyage — 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 Maiden Voyage goes

Maiden Voyage on record

Analyze this progression

Related

Secondary dominants

Modal interchange

Blues for Alice

All Blues

So What

Jazz chord progressions