Thank you all for your answers. Musician life is not easy. I enjoy to read your experience. I've also been through so many different situations...in different coutries on top of it...and I see it as a general experience, which you can't buy.

You're still welcome to comment on the main theme...analysis of chords progressions...good day.

To continue in the same spirit...

A friend of mine, a violonist, asked me to play guitar with her...classical stuff...well I'm more in the jazz area. I started to analyse a piece of J.S. Bach, Cantate No 147. I work on an arrangement written by a pianist...3 voices harmony. For me it's more complicated when I have to analyse a 3 voices harmony instead of 4, 5 or 6 voices. With 3 voices you have almost to go inside the head of the arranger, you have to suppose the way he was thinking when he wrotes these lines. Then I wrote everything like what we see in jazz or commercial way of writing (ex: G/B, etc). It took me about 1 hour for each page...a 3 pages piece...The harmony is quite simple but to be sure I have the right chords is not so simple. I will try it this afternoon with my friend and see if she feels ok with what I did. I guess I will have some small things to change...don't know yet...lol. Talk to you later about it.

When doing an adaptation of a Bach piece or any etude either reharmonizing, adding to or reducing voices, it's always seemed to me like the individual should first thoroughly understand the thing harmonically and contrapuntally as it stands. Then like a solo jazz guitarist does when paring down a denser arrangement, make sure you include the essential melody, harmony and counterpoint moments that make the piece move and pop for you because now you're taking it out of the composer's hands. When reharmonizing an existing thing like what was done with Charlie Parker solos done with a whole sax section, it's easy to suck all the air out of it. I hear it all the time in pop music when 4 harmony parts are used and 3 would be more harmonically committed with more space for voices to move, cadences to resolve and still catch the important moments. Stickist extraordinaire Larry Tuttle says about stripping down an orchestral piece to a sparser arrangement that a good place to start is to obtain a piano reduction where someone else has done most of the heavy lifting. As soon as you start messing with something though, it's kinda up to you to decide if it's any good or if you're just scribbling in the margins of the Mona Lisa. And then some things like Bach's "Come Sweet Death" or Prokofiev's "Dance of the Knights" you just don't touch in my opinion.

My violonist gave me an excellent note...lol. Honestly I had to change few things...talking with her and looking at the melody vs the other one (counterpoint) I suggested some other solutions and it was good for her. Nice experience...

I was a bit out of my topic in my last messages. Let's come back...analysis of a progression.

Instead of looking at chords like this...Dm7, G7b9, etc...let's look at IIm7, V7b9, etc...and the goal of it is to know how to play a song in many different keys...This way your Imaj7 is your starting point...not all the time but very often.

How would you analyse, for example, Take 5 of Paul Desmond? I have my own opinion (analysis) but I'd like to read yours...

I always play and teach by chord functionality and visualizing this concept on the fretboard.
Your example of Take Five in Emi

A section
Em Bm is i min to v min

B section
C Maj7 F#m7b5 Bm7 Em7 Am7 D7 GMaj7 G7
IV. vii. iii. vi. ii. V I. V of C
Repeat but second ending on F#m7 B7
ii. V. of Emi at top

Bridge chords are descending 5ths (perfect for The Stick) part of the song title besides the 5/4 timing

Steve Adelson

I see it differently...I explain. The original key is Ebm, which is the relative minor of Gb...So...

The I chord is the Gb and the Ebm is the VI (relative minor).

So...

First part - VIm (Ebm) - IIIm (Bbm being the IIIm of Gbmaj)

Bridge (considering Gb as the Imaj) - IV (Bmaj) IIm7 (Abm7) -
IIIm (Bbm7) VIm (Ebm7) - IIm7 (Abm7) V7 (Db7) - Imaj7 (Gbmaj7)

Bridge second time...only the ending can be considered as a II-V-I in minor analysis concept.

IIm7b5 (Fm7b5) V7#5 (Bb7#5) the extension b5 and #5 being my own choice...very logical in fact - to end on a Im7 (Ebm7)...then this same chord comes back as a VIm7 when we go to the top.

Does it look logical to you? There is a pivot chord (Fm7b5) between major and minor concept...this last one is very short in this process. Paul Desmond new exactly what he was playing and his melody on top is just
gorgeous.

The was I see it is that is start in major but on the VIm degree to end on a minor concept with this II-V-I at the end.

Important note...if you improvise on this theme...do it on Ebm (Gb scale) all along and you'll sound great.

I made it Emi for simplicity and somr folks play it in this key even though the Real Book has Ebmi
Ebmi is not vi. It's a i because the melody sounds resolved on that chord . This is an important point. A key is It's resolution.
The bridge goes to the key you suggest, the relative Gb Major. The second bridge chord Abm6 can be renamed enharmonically as Fm7b5 and be part of the complete descending fifths cycle (BMaj7 actually is CbMaj7)

Steve A

Hello Steve,

I don't have any problems with the resolution on Ebm as a Im. It's exactly what I described...but only at the end. It's like (I give another example) a blues that starts on his V7...it doesn't mean the tonalily is on the starting chord...Exactly why I don't see the Ebm7 as a I chord...at the end...yes.

To analyse every degrees like I did is very clear on the other side. As long as you understand the whole thing, everything is fine.

I forgot on my side one chord and it's the Gb7 (you wrote A7 on your side and it was after transposition in Em...no problems)...well...on my side there is Gbmaj7 followed by Gb7/Bb, the third is the bass...it is at the same time a leading chord going to Bmaj7. If I do analyse my way I would call this Gb7 a V7 of IV...(V7/IV)...I'm not really original to write this, it's more a Berklee concept about naming chords.

Again, if I follow Berklee's rules this pivot chord Fm7b5 can be a VIIm7b5 if you put it in relation with Gbmaj or a IIm7b5 if you consider it in relation with the Em7...it wears perfectly his name...a pivot chord...lol.

By the way guys, if I talk about Berklee in my comments it's not to be arrogant or by snoberry...it is just because when I started to study with them (by correspondence) I found every time an answer to the questions I had in mind about how to understand harmony. It came to my life in a very natural way. I was at McGill University in Montreal (between '80 and '83) and even though I wanted to learn more about jazz. We had in our programms some classical harmony. It lighted me up so much...I was thinking...ok, that's exactly what I'm looking for but in jazz. A drummer told me about a corresponding arrangement Berklee course in 25 lessons. I bought it and I completed it about a year and a half later.

Before that I tried other documents or lessons...Dick Grove for example...many others in fact...it was never as clear as what I learned from Berklee. If I can transmit to you, to give you this clarity I've seen in this course and if this can help you (even just a little bit), I'm just happy about that. I don't have anything to prove to anyone. Maybe it's more clear for someone else to understand his way with another school...that's perfect with me. On my side it was like pure clear water and so easy to understand that I'd like o transmit this to the ones who'd like to know more about it.

This correspondence course doesn't exist anymore. That's a shame because it was so rich in knowledge. And it was cheap at that time, I paid 125$. A couple of years ago I saw a note I wrote in this course...the name of my teacher. I search on internet and found an email adress at Berklee and I wrote a message. Can you imagine I received an answer maybe a week later telling me it was his son answering to me because my teacher was retired since a couple of years while his son was a teacher at Berklee. Nice story, isn't it?