Milestones Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Modal AABBA · A section (G dorian, bars 1–8) beside the B section (A aeolian, bars 17–24), each symbol lasting two bars

Gm7 | Gm7 | Gm7 | Gm7 | Am7 | Am7 | Am7 | Am7

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

G minor

Tonal center

G

Confidence

Medium

Chords analysed

8

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Gm7	i	Tonic	Gm7 is the tonic of Gm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Gm7	i	Tonic	Gm7 is the tonic of Gm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Gm7	i	Tonic	Gm7 is the tonic of Gm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Gm7	i	Tonic	Gm7 is the tonic of Gm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Am7	ii	Predominant	Am7 is a minor ii in a minor key, which means the sixth degree is natural: Dorian rather than natural minor.	Medium
Am7	ii	Predominant	Am7 is a minor ii in a minor key, which means the sixth degree is natural: Dorian rather than natural minor.	Medium
Am7	ii	Predominant	Am7 is a minor ii in a minor key, which means the sixth degree is natural: Dorian rather than natural minor.	Medium
Am7	ii	Predominant	Am7 is a minor ii in a minor key, which means the sixth degree is natural: Dorian rather than natural minor.	Medium

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 G minor, these bars come out as i – ii. Inside those 8 chords there is a chord borrowed from the parallel mode. With no dominant anywhere in it, nothing is obliged to resolve. Hold each chord until you find the note that still wants to go somewhere — that one is doing the work here. 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 Milestones goes

Forty bars rather than thirty-two, in a form that runs A A B B A — an asymmetry that catches people who assume a standard shape and start soloing in the wrong place. There are two scales and no chord changes in the usual sense, and the move between them is a change of mode over a stationary bass rather than a modulation. The B section is the brighter of the two, and the return to A is the only moment in the piece that feels like a resolution, which is why the whole form depends on getting that one transition placed correctly.

Milestones on record

Miles Davis recorded it in 1958, the year before Kind of Blue, and it is the piece where the modal approach that album is famous for was first worked out on record. Confusingly, Davis had recorded a different composition under the same title in 1947, and the two are still occasionally mixed up in listings. The sextet on this date included both Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley.

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.

Open in Jazz Harmony Analyzer →

Milestones — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

The books behind this page

Jazz Harmony

Harmonic Narrative

Jazz Guitar Comping

Harmonic analysis

Why this example matters

How the rest of Milestones goes

Milestones on record

Analyze this progression

Related

Modal interchange

Blues for Alice

All Blues

So What

Jazz chord progressions