’Round Midnight Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A1 · Bars 1–3

Ebm Ebm(maj7)/D Ebm7/Db | Cdim7 Abm7 Db7 | Ebm6

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Project 03 · Harmony

The complete chord progression of ’Round Midnight is in JamShed

Play it with double bass, drums and piano, at your tempo and in your key.
Loop the bars that trip you up and mute your own instrument.
Print the whole chart for the music stand: chords only, or with the analysis, the triad pairs and the pentatonics.

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The full progression as a PDF

Harmonic analysis

Key

E♭ minor

Tonal center

D#

Confidence

High

Chords analysed

7

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Ebm	i	Tonic	Ebm is the tonic of D#m. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Ebm(maj7)/D	i	Tonic	Ebm(maj7)/D is a minor tonic with a major seventh — the melodic minor tonic. The leading tone is inside the tonic chord itself.	High
Ebm7/Db	i	Tonic	Ebm7/Db is the tonic of D#m. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Cdim7	vi°7	Other	Cdim7 does not take a functional role in D#m. It sits on VI and is best heard as colour, or as a sign that the tonal center has moved.	Low
Abm7	iv	Predominant	Abm7 is the iv chord of D#m: the minor subdominant. Also readable as ii/bIII.	High
Db7	bVII7	Other	Db7 is bVII7: the subtonic as a dominant seventh. It usually moves to bIII or steps down to the tonic. Also readable as V7/bIII.	Medium
Ebm6	i	Tonic	Ebm6 is the tonic of D#m. It is where the progression is at rest.	High

What the analyzer found in it

iv - bVII7 - IAbm7 - Db7 - Ebm6

A backdoor cadence in D#m: iv and bVII7 borrowed from the parallel minor, arriving at the tonic from below.

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 →

The complete analysis of ’Round Midnight — every chord of the whole form, with its Roman numeral and its ii–V–Is marked on the chart — is in JamShed with the Practice Pass, ready to print. Open it in JamShed →

Why this example matters

Read in E♭ minor, these bars come out as i – vi°7 – iv – bVII7. Inside those 7 chords there is a backdoor resolution. The shortest way in is a two-voice reduction: third and seventh only, slowly. Db7 contributes F and B, and where that pair resolves is the whole story of the passage. You will meet the same move again in Now’s the Time, Billie’s Bounce and Straight, No Chaser, transposed and at a different pace.

How the rest of ’Round Midnight goes

The most harmonically dense ballad in the common repertoire. It is in a remote minor key, almost every bar carries a different chord, and a large share of them are approached chromatically or by substitution rather than by cadence, so the piece never settles for long enough to be predicted. There is also a written introduction and an ending tag that are effectively part of the composition, and versions that omit them sound truncated. This is the tune where most players discover that knowing the chords and being able to play them are different achievements.

’Round Midnight on record

Monk wrote it in the early 1940s and it is the most recorded composition by any jazz musician. Cootie Williams recorded it first and holds a co-credit; Miles Davis’s 1955 Newport performance is generally described as the moment that restored his career. The proliferation of versions has left the harmony genuinely unsettled — several widely used charts disagree, and Monk’s own playing does not match any of them exactly.

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.

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’Round Midnight — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

The books behind this page

Jazz Harmony

The Jazz Guitar Shortcut

Mastering Jazz Guitar Voicings

The Jazz Roadmap Lite

The complete chord progression of ’Round Midnight is in JamShed

Harmonic analysis

What the analyzer found in it

Why this example matters

How the rest of ’Round Midnight goes

’Round Midnight on record

Analyze this progression

Related

Backdoor progression

Roman numeral analysis

Now’s the Time

Billie’s Bounce

Straight, No Chaser

Jazz chord progressions