I’ve been studying My Foolish Heart more. It’s an “intermediate” standard, for sure. “Basic” tunes have only a couple harmonic “innovations”, whereas this tune has several of them. “Innovations” are some kind of more involved, modulation-like (in the sense of moving to or from a chord outside of a key or, as I imagine Schoenberg might say (?), at least further from the diatonic chords in the key) chord progressions, essentially; something beyond the more standard 2-5-1s or moving around the cycle of fourths or something like that.

I might say that the “innovations” of a tune are elements of more “advanced” harmony. They tend to be harmony that, while it sounds exciting, is not available to me subconsciously at the keyboard—it’s almost a tautology to say that, since obviously if they were as natural to play as 2-5-1s they wouldn’t be “innovations”. So studying such innovations in isolation is worthwhile because it increases my available sonic palette. A couple examples from My Foolish Heart are moving “from a minor chord to a dominant chord whose root is a tritone away” and “from a minor chord to an altered dominant chord with the same root resolving to a minor chord a fifth down”.

“A” and “B” voicings revisited

My Foolish Heart is also, incidentally, an excellent vehicle for studying the Bill Evans “A” and “B” voicings.

The major voicing can be used over:

  • major chords (1 3 5 7)
  • minor chords (3 5 7 9)
  • dominant sus chords (7 9 11 13)

The dominant voicing can be used over:

  • dominant chords (7 9 3 13)
  • altered dominant chords (3 ♯5 7 ♯9)
  • half-diminished chords (♭5 7 1 11)

With alterations, the dominant voicing can also be used over:

  • diminished chords (1 ♭3 ♭5 7 or ♭3 ♭5 6 9 or ♭5 6 1 11 or 6 1 ♭3 ♯5)
    • the first three notes are the diminished chord and the last note is a “tension” (a la Barry Harris’s analysis of diminished chords)
  • dominant flat 9 chords (7 ♭9 3 13)

Therefore, these two sets of voicings are really enough to play the majority of major and minor harmony.

My Foolish Heart has a great affinity to these voicings. This is perhaps not so incidental, because it was popularized in the standard jazz repertoire by Bill Evans, who is known for his use of the voicings. Playing with these voicings takes a lot of thinking for me, but I believe it is worth learning as it leads to very smooth voice leading. Indeed, working out the chord progressions in this piece in these voicings shows how the chords connect with each other smoothly; the chord progressions start to seem “less arbitrary” (really struggling for words here) and I start to appreciate the piece even more.

In a previous post, I had started doing the harmonic analysis. In an upcoming post I intend to do more harmonic analysis, with an emphasis on 1) the “innovative” snippets of chord progressions, so as to isolate them and practice these less-intuitive progressions in all keys and 2) use of the “A” and “B” voicings.