Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 18:57:51 -0700
From: reed <reed@justjazz.com>
Subject: Re: Harmonising a melody? : Fly me to the Moon


At 10:34 AM 10/24/96 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi folks
>         I am trying to find an approach to producing  simple but 
>pleasant harmonizations of the songs in my fake books (for piano).
> I have tried playing block chords in the left hand and melody in the 
>right hand but this usually produces poor results. 
>
> To be specific if we take a nice melody like 'Fly Me To The Moon' how do 
>you approach turning this into a two handed harmonization?.
>I have tried simply fitting all the notes of the chords under each melody 
>note but the result is a bit disappointing. Is there a better way?. 
>
> Any tips or ideas on this subject greatly appreciated.
>
>---------- John       
>
John,

Nice tune choice.

First let's agree on some basic changes for the tune.

For C, use Cmaj7 or C6.

Ami7  | Dmi7   | G7    | C   C7    |
Fmaj7 | Bmi7b5 | E7    | Ami7  A7  |
Dmi7  | G7     | Emi7  | A7        |
Dmi7  | G7     | C     | Bmi7b5 E7 |
Ami7  | Dmi7   | G7    | C   C7    |
Fmaj7 | Bmi7b5 | E7    | Ami7  A7  |
Dmi7  | G7     | Bb7   | A7        |
Dmi7  | G7     | C     | Bmi7b5 E7 |

Okay, well first, try just playing the melody in the right
hand and the bass note (as low as practical) in the
left hand. That's always a good intro to the basic structure
of the tune.

There are so many things one can do.

Since we started talking about block chords, let's try this for
the first two measures.

From bottom to top, try the following voicings:

[E G A C]  [D F Ab B] [C E G A] [A# C# E G]
[A C D F]  [A# C# E G] [C D F A] [D F A C]

I'm basically harmonizing the scales using seventh chords
when the melody fits and diminished chords elsewhere.
I'm using some inversion of the diminished chord beginning
a half step below the chord I'm approaching.

In the left hand you can just duplicate the melody .

C B A G F G E C

reed

Reed Kotler
reed@justjazz.com
http://www.justjazz.com

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