Whispering Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A1

Ebmaj7 | Ebmaj7 | Fm7 | Bb7 | Ebmaj7

This is a short excerpt, not the full chart. The composition dates from 1920 and is old enough that it is very likely in the public domain in the United States, which is why the excerpt runs longer here — but copyright status varies by territory and by edition, so treat that as context, not as legal advice.

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

Eb major

Tonal center

Eb

Confidence

High

Chords analysed

5

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Ebmaj7	I	Tonic	Ebmaj7 is the tonic of Eb. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Ebmaj7	I	Tonic	Ebmaj7 is the tonic of Eb. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Fm7	ii	Predominant	Fm7 is the ii chord of Eb: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	High
Bb7	V7	Dominant	Bb7 is the dominant of Eb. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High
Ebmaj7	I	Tonic	Ebmaj7 is the tonic of Eb. It is where the progression is at rest.	High

What the analyzer found in it

ii - V7 - IFm7 - Bb7 - Ebmaj7

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

V - IBb7 - Ebmaj7

The progression closes with an authentic cadence in Eb.

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 Eb major, the excerpt is I – ii – V7. Inside those 5 chords there is a complete ii-V-I. Take the roots away and keep the third and seventh. In Bb7 that is D and Ab. 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 Tune Up use the same device, which is the argument for learning it once properly rather than three times by accident.

How the rest of Whispering goes

A thirty-two-bar song whose harmony moves slowly — often one chord for two bars — and resolves in entirely conventional places. The interest is in the melody, which is built from a narrow range and a repeated rhythmic figure. Its real importance to jazz is second-hand: the changes were borrowed for one of the founding bebop recordings, and the contrast between the original’s leisurely surface and what was later built on it is the clearest single illustration of what the borrowing practice was for.

Whispering on record

Published in 1920 and credited to John Schonberger; Paul Whiteman’s recording that year sold in enormous quantities and is one of the best-selling records of the acoustic era. Dizzy Gillespie’s “Groovin’ High” is written over these changes at a much faster tempo, and playing the two in succession is a standard demonstration of how a 1920s dance number became bebop raw material.

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 →

Whispering — 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 Whispering goes

Whispering on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Autumn Leaves

All The Things You Are

Tune Up

Jazz chord progressions