My Funny Valentine Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A1 · Bars 1–4

Cm | Cm(maj7) | Cm7 | Cm6

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

C minor

Tonal center

C

Confidence

High

Chords analysed

4

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Cm	i	Tonic	Cm is the tonic of Cm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Cm(maj7)	i	Tonic	Cm(maj7) is a minor tonic with a major seventh — the melodic minor tonic. The leading tone is inside the tonic chord itself.	High
Cm7	i	Tonic	Cm7 is the tonic of Cm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Cm6	i	Tonic	Cm6 is the tonic of Cm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High

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 C minor the excerpt reads i. Inside those 4 chords there is 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. The same device turns up in Blues for Alice, All Blues and So What, in other keys and at other tempos.

How the rest of My Funny Valentine goes

A minor tune whose melody barely moves — it circles a small group of notes for most of its length — while the harmony underneath descends step by step, so the same melodic note is recoloured several times over. That descending line is the whole piece, and it is why the tune supports interpretations at wildly different tempos and lengths. The last section finally lifts to the parallel major for the closing phrase, and that single change of quality is one of the most reliable emotional effects in the repertoire.

My Funny Valentine on record

Rodgers and Hart wrote it for the 1937 musical Babes in Arms. Chet Baker’s vocal version made it inseparable from him, and Miles Davis played it for over a decade — the extended live performance on the 1964 album that takes its name from the tune is among the most analysed recordings in the music, largely for how far it departs from the written form while remaining legible.

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.

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My Funny Valentine — 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 My Funny Valentine goes

My Funny Valentine on record

Analyze this progression

Related

Modal interchange

Blues for Alice

All Blues

So What

Jazz chord progressions