Tune Up Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A · Bars 1–4

Em7 | A7 | Dmaj7 | Dmaj7

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

D major

Tonal center

D

Confidence

High

Chords analysed

4

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Em7	ii	Predominant	Em7 is the ii chord of D: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	High
A7	V7	Dominant	A7 is the dominant of D. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High
Dmaj7	I	Tonic	Dmaj7 is the tonic of D. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Dmaj7	I	Tonic	Dmaj7 is the tonic of D. It is where the progression is at rest.	High

What the analyzer found in it

ii - V7 - IEm7 - A7 - Dmaj7

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

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 D major, the excerpt is ii – V7 – I. Inside those 4 chords there is a complete ii-V-I. Take the roots away and keep the third and seventh. In A7 that is C# and G. Those two notes decide where the progression is going, and hearing them move is worth more than naming the chords. Autumn Leaves, All The Things You Are and Solar use the same device, which is the argument for learning it once properly rather than three times by accident.

How the rest of Tune Up goes

What you see in the excerpt is the whole method. The tune is three ii-V-I cadences, each one starting a whole tone below the last, with a longer cadence at the end to turn the form around. There is nothing hidden: no substitution, no borrowed chord, no ambiguity about where the tonic is at any moment. That is exactly what makes it the standard test piece — a player who cannot make three plain cadences sound like music has nowhere to hide, because the harmony is not going to do the work.

Tune Up on record

Miles Davis recorded it in 1953 and is the credited composer, though the attribution has been questioned for as long as the tune has been played — Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson claimed it, along with “Four”, and the claim has never been fully settled. Its most consequential appearance is second-hand: John Coltrane took this chord sequence, inserted his own cadences between each of its cadences, and called the result “Countdown”. Learning Tune Up first is the standard route into that piece, because Countdown is unintelligible until you can hear what it was built on.

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 →

Tune Up — 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 Tune Up goes

Tune Up on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Autumn Leaves

All The Things You Are

Solar

Jazz chord progressions