Ornithology Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A · Bars 1–4

Gmaj7 | Gm7 C7 | Fmaj7 | Fm7 Bb7

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 major

Tonal center

G

Confidence

Low

Chords analysed

6

Read in G major, the key of the tune. Taken on its own, with nothing around it, this excerpt is just as easy to hear in F major — a few bars are often not enough to fix a tonic, and that ambiguity is a real property of the music rather than a gap in the analysis.

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Gmaj7	I	Tonic	Gmaj7 is the tonic of G. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Gm7	ii	Predominant	Gm7 is the ii chord of F: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	High
C7	V7	Dominant	C7 is the dominant of F. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High
Fmaj7	I	Tonic	Fmaj7 is the tonic of F. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Fm7	ii/bVI	Predominant	Fm7 is the ii of a secondary ii-V. Together with Bb7 it prepares D#, so the pair tonicizes bVI without leaving the key.	Medium
Bb7	V7/bVI	Dominant	Bb7 is functioning as V7/bVI: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of D#, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at bVI instead. Also readable as subV7/ii.	Low

What the analyzer found in it

ModulationF major

Bars 2-3 are heard in F major: the harmony cadences there and stays long enough to become a key.

ii - V7 - IGm7 - C7 - Fmaj7

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

ii/bVI - V7/bVIFm7 - Bb7

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

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 G major the excerpt reads I – ii – V7 – ii/bVI – V7/bVI. Inside those 6 chords there is a complete ii-V-I and at least one secondary dominant. Play it slowly with only two voices — the third and seventh of each chord. In C7 those are E and A#, 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 Ornithology goes

This is a contrafact: a new melody written over an existing harmonic form, in this case How High the Moon. The chords are the older tune’s descending sequence, sometimes with an added ii in front of a dominant to give the line more places to turn. What the new melody does is refuse the long notes the original leans on. It runs eighth notes across the barlines and resolves its phrases in the middle of chords rather than at their edges, which is the single clearest demonstration of what bebop actually changed — not the harmony, but where a phrase is allowed to end.

Ornithology on record

Recorded by Charlie Parker in 1946, with the melody generally credited jointly to Parker and the trumpeter Benny Harris. Writing new lines over borrowed changes was partly an aesthetic choice and partly a business one — a contrafact was a new copyright, while the underlying harmony belonged to whoever wrote the original song. That arrangement explains a large share of the bebop repertoire, and this tune is the usual first example when the practice is being taught.

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 →

Ornithology — 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 Ornithology goes

Ornithology on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Secondary dominants

Autumn Leaves

All The Things You Are

Tune Up

Jazz chord progressions