Fly Me to the Moon, Harmonic Analysis

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:33.058)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Well, here we go. A new year with new excitement, new ambitions, new energy. It's a new start and always new goals. Wow. This is true, not only from a learning perspective, right? But also from a teaching perspective as well. Every year,

You know, every year the Dallas School of Music closes for two weeks for our Christmas break between the semesters. It's fantastic. It's a nice break for students. It's a great break for the faculty. And I love the break because I get to spend a lot of time with family, which is always a blast. But I also love the break because it becomes a time of reflection for me as an educator. And my reflection

is always, you know, every year it's always centered around one question. How can I make learning music simple? That's it. How can I make learning music simple? And actually that's the million dollar question. You know, what I have learned over the past 35 years of teaching is that if music does not become

conceptually simple for the student, then there is absolutely no possibility at all of it becoming physically simple, right? So for those of you who have followed my podcast over the years, you've heard me state that fact many times, like just about every episode. And why do I continue to stress this fact over and over and over again?

in every podcast episode. Well, because it's 100 % true. That's why and I love the truth. As I like to say, if music is complicated upstairs, conceptually, then you have zero shot of it coming out downstairs in your hands physically. It's the truth. So armed with this musical reality, I spend my Christmas break reflecting on

Dr. Bob Lawrence (03:02.328)
seven musical facts that I have discovered over my lifetime of studying music and how best to teach the various and essential skills associated with each of those seven facts. So here are the seven musical facts. Now, if you're not driving, grab a piece of paper and a pencil because you're going to want to write this down. Okay. Here are seven musical facts.

And these are the seven musical facts. It's it. Period. This is it. You ready? Number one, music is the production of sound. That's what musicians do. We produce sound. We call those sounds major, minor, dominant, half diminished, diminished, right? Number one, music is the production of sound. Number two, sound is produced harmonically and melodically.

sound is produced harmonically and melodically. Number three, when we produce sound harmonically, we are playing chords, voicings. Okay. Fact number four, when we produce sounds melodically, we are playing arpeggios and scales. That's it. Number five, when playing arpeggios,

playing arpeggios and scales, we are moving in one of two directions, up or down. That's it. It's the only two directions we can go. Fact number six, we camouflage our arpeggios and scales with tension. Those are notes that fall outside of the key center. And fact number seven, to make all of this interesting,

In other words, facts one through six to make facts one through six interesting. We add rhythm. That's it. Those are the seven musical facts of music. If I reduce those seven facts down to just keywords, here they are sound, harmony, melody, chords, scales, arpeggios, up, down, tension, rhythm. Let me do the

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:30.124)
I'll give you the keywords again. I'm going to slow it down. Sound, harmony, melody, chords, scales, arpeggios, up, down, tension, rhythm. These are the seven musical facts. These are the keywords that you must come to know. You must etch them into your mind. Why?

because these seven musical facts need to govern 100 % govern your practice routine, your practice approach. In other words, your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly practice agenda needs to reflect the seven musical facts. In fact,

If the what and how of your practicing does not plug into these seven musical facts, then I got really bad news for you. You are wasting your time.

Now, notice what is not mentioned in my seven facts of music. What is not mentioned?

That would be the word tunes. And you know why that is? Because most students, nearly 100 % of students, except for jazz, piano skills listeners, approach tune learning without any understanding of the seven musical facts, which is not good. And quite frankly, it's wrong.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:25.6)
You know, let me let me ask you a question. If someone wanted to learn how to read music.

Do you think it's a good idea for them to learn how to read music without any understanding of the relationship that exists between the notes they're reading? In other words, attempt to learn music by reading music as a what I call a dot button relationship or a dot button exercise. Right? In other words, you see a dot on a piece of paper and then you push a button on the piano. You see a dot, push a button, see a dot.

push a button. Right now, the answer to this question is absolutely that that would not be an advantageous way to learn how to read music. And in fact, even an individual without ever having received a single lesson of music can answer that question with a resounding no, it doesn't take much mental effort to realize that a rote approach to learning how to read music is not beneficial.

Yet, yet for many folks, this is their experience when receiving music lessons. And this is very unfortunate because there is zero understanding of music when you approach reading or when you approach learning music in such a manner. And that is why when using a dot button approach to reading music, that's why that approach, always feels like you're starting over again.

when presented with a new piece of music. Now, let me ask you another question, a related question. Do you think it's a good idea to try learning tunes without any understanding of the essential skills that flow from the seven facts of music that I just presented? The answer, again, is a resounding no. It's a no for the very same reasons. A rote approach to learning tunes

Dr. Bob Lawrence (09:30.36)
produces the same music as musical results as a road approach to learning how to read music. That would be zero, zero results. And this is why I say the seven musical facts need to govern 100 % govern your practice routine, your practice approach so that you begin to see you begin to actually see these seven musical facts.

in every tune that you study, in every tune that you play. And this is precisely why we approach our tune studies at Jazz Piano Skills centering around the seven facts of music. And we do so using three distinct tune learning phases, right? We have a harmonic analysis that we do, we have a melodic analysis that we do, we have an improvisation development that we do.

And this year, and this year, we are adding an emphasis to each of these phases, which will focus specifically on fact number seven, musical fact number seven, rhythm. Each phase moving forward incorporates a rhythm challenge, a rhythm challenge that will be posted in the private jazz piano skills community.

Now the harmonic rhythm challenge week one involves rhythmic transcribing and comping skills. The melodic rhythm challenge, will be week two of every month, involves transposing motifs to various key centers. And the improvisation rhythm challenge week three of every month.

stretches arpeggio and scale motion through various segments of the sound, thus transforming your soloing, right, by increasing your vocabulary. This is why, more than ever, I am totally pumped up, excited about this new year. We have an amazing, educationally sound, three-tier, three-phase approach

Dr. Bob Lawrence (11:53.976)
that is formulated from a clear understanding of the seven facts of music, right? The seven musical facts. Now, the seven musical facts needed to illuminate, they need to illuminate essential jazz piano skills needed to successfully discover, learn and play tunes to play jazz, right? And that's why this is going to be a great year.

So today, so today we begin our harmonic analysis of a classic jazz standard performed by, I think, everyone in the world. I think this tune is performed by everyone in the world. So today you are going to discover Fly Me to the Moon. You are going to learn form, chord changes, and harmonic function for Fly Me to the

and you're going to play Fly Me to the Moon using my suggested voicings, right, my left hand shell voicings, two handed structures, and we're going to look at common harmonic progressions for ear training development. And on top of all that, you will be given a a rhythm challenge to develop your transcribing and comping skills. Wow.

So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you consider yourself a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this Jazz Piano Skills podcast lesson exploring the great jazz standard, fly me to the moon, to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to, as I always do,

welcome first time listeners to Jazz Piano Skills. So if you are a new listener, if you're new to Jazz Piano Skills podcast, or if you're just simply new to Jazz Piano Skills, welcome, I want to invite you to become a Jazz Piano Skills member. And your membership grants you many, perks. For instance, you will have access to the premium podcast content. Now, every podcast episode is really kind of

Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:15.898)
There's two halves to each podcast episode. The first half is free for everyone. It has the Discover, Learn, Play announcement at the beginning of what the podcast is going to focus on. I always deal with a question of the week. I lay out the educational agenda and the lesson rationale. The second half of the podcast for members only contains the lesson content, the demonstrations, and the weekly

challenge that is going to be presented every week as well. You also as a member have access to the weekly podcast packets. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs that I designed and developed for every weekly podcast episode to help you get the most out of each episode and to maximize your musical growth. You also as a member have access to the courses. These are comprehensive and interactive self paced

sequential courses online. There's interactive learning media to help you digest the concepts, the skills conceptually. And of course, there's video demonstrations of the skills in all 12 keys. As a member, you also have a reserved seat in my weekly master classes, which are held every Thursday evening at 8pm Central Time. If you can't make it, it's no big deal. The master classes are recorded so you can

listen to the masterclass as often as you'd like to get the most out of each class as well. As a member, you also have access to the private Jazz Piano Skills community, which hosts a variety of forums, podcast specific forums, episode forums, there are general jazz forums, and of course, plenty of member feedback and assistance to help motivate you as well. And finally, as a Jazz Piano Skills member, you have

unlimited educational support, private, personal, professional support, as often as you need it. You can utilize the SpeakPipe widget that is nestled on every page of the Jazz Panel Skills website. There's a web form that you can submit for help. You can also call me here at the Dallas School of Music at my office number, or you can do the old-fashioned email if you prefer. So several ways to get in touch with me.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (16:42.804)
get support throughout the week as well. So all of these amazing privileges, these perks are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazzpanelskills.com and of course become a member to enjoy premium podcast content and all of the other privileges that I just mentioned. Of course, if get to the site, you have any questions after you poke around a little bit, don't hesitate to reach out to me to contact me. I'm happy

spend some time with you and answer any questions that you may have. Okay, on to the very first question of the week for 2025. This week's question comes from Robbie Cabrera. Robbie Cabrera living in Providence, Rhode Island. And Robbie writes, no matter how hard I try, no matter

how much I practice playing a tune, I can never get through an entire song without stopping, and it drives me crazy. Something always breaks down. Either I forget what chord comes next, a section of the melody, or my improvisation trips up my timing. Is there anything I can do to eliminate these types of blunders?

Or is it just a personal handicap that I need to accept? Well, it's not that. Okay, Robbie, fantastic, fantastic question to kick off the new year. Now, first things first. You're not alone. I can assure you that many folks listening right now are nodding their heads up and down in total agreement with you saying to themselves, I totally get it.

I understand. I experienced that very same challenge. Now, believe it or not, you kind of answered your own question. Honestly, I mean, you mentioned that you have difficulty getting through a tune without something breaking down. And then you presented a list of the things that break down. You forget what chord comes next, or you forget a section of the melody.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (19:08.878)
Your timing falls apart when improvising. you know what? mean, seriously, congrats on a successful self diagnosis of the various skills causing your inability to make it through an entire tune. That's pretty darn, that's pretty darn cool, right? That you're capable of doing that. So, you know, if you hadn't presented your self diagnosis to your very own question,

Here's how I would have answered your question. Okay, so I would have said something like this, Robbie, here's a list of possible reasons as to why you experienced difficulty making it through an entire tomb. Number one, your internal sense of time is weak. Number two, you do not know your chords or the progression well enough. Number three,

you do not know the melody well enough. And number four, you have a limited improvisation vocabulary. I would give you those four, those four areas to focus on right away that your internal sense of time is weak. You do not know your chords or the progression well enough. You do not know the melody well enough.

and you have a limited improvisation vocabulary. So let's talk about each one of these for a second. Let's, let's start with time, your internal sense of time is weak. So I would say, do you practice time? And if you don't, I mean, don't feel bad. Very few people do. And why is this? Because time, even though it's the most important skill to develop, time is

Even though it's the most important skill to develop, ironically, the skill is talked about the least in lessons and classes and lectures on YouTube and so on, right? It's talked about the least, if at all. It amazes me how rare it is to hear jazz educators stress the importance of practicing time. They'll talk about time, but rarely do you hear people talk about practicing time, right? Instead,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (21:34.666)
Instead, we're always hearing about transcriptions and licks and modes and technique. They get all the attention. While practicing time, practicing time gets brushed under the rug. You know, so all that to say, begin to make practicing time a priority. And how do you practice time? Well, here are a couple ideas to begin with. Okay. Number one, use a backing track.

You have to have something that makes time audible, right? So backing track. And I like the backing track, honestly, over a metronome because the backing track places time in a musical context, right? And I like that. So I would use a backing track. I would isolate a sound. I would select a voicing, okay?

And I would then say I'm going to play count one of every measure. Okay, and I would do this at various tempos, by the way. So I would isolate a sound, select a voicing, select count one. Can I actually play count one of every measure? And then I would move it. Can I play count two of every measure? Can I play count three? Can I play count four? And then I would ratchet it up a little bit. Can I play the and of one?

every measure. Can I play the and of two, the and of three, and the and of four? If you just start with that, right? If you just start with that, being able to play the downbeats of one, two, three, and four, and the upbeats, the ands of one, two, three, and four, and you do that isolating sound in various tempos, you are practicing time, and it will have a profound impact on your playing.

Okay, so now let's talk about knowing the chord progression. I would say to you, Robbie, are you are you playing chords? Or are you playing progressions? Are you thinking of each chord as an autonomous entity? Or do you see the chord in relationship to the surrounding chords? In other words, do you recognize

Dr. Bob Lawrence (24:00.874)
And do you hear progressions like two, five, one, five minor going to one, seven, going to four major, three to flat, three to two to flat two, et cetera, right? If you are trying to remember, if you are trying to remember what chord comes next, and you're not seeing the chord as part of a larger landscape of a harmonic motion of a chord progression,

then there is a high risk, very, very high risk that you will not remember, I'm putting that in quotes, right? Remember what chord comes next at some point when playing the tune. And as a result, things will break down as you put it, right? It's almost guaranteed. That's a very, very difficult way to play the tune, trying to remember one chord and then the next chord and then the next chord and then the next chord.

Right? So you want to make sure that you're studying harmonic motion in tunes. What's really going on underneath the hood here? What progressions are being played? And be able to understand those progressions intellectually, physically and orally. Okay. All right. So now let's talk about melody. I would say ask you

Can you sing the melody? Can you sing it? Can you play the melody in time alone or by itself without any chords over and over and over again? I mean, that is the tune that the melody is the tune. Can you play that melody all by itself without any chords over and over and over again? I would ask you, do you know the lyrics of the tune?

which will help a great deal with your melodic interpretation. Now, if you cannot answer those questions with a resounding yes, then you do not know the melody well enough. And again, there's a very high risk that when playing the tune, things will break down. It's this part of the process, right? I can guarantee it.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (26:27.52)
If you can't sing the melody, if you can't play the melody in time all by itself over and over again, if you have no clue to the lyrics of the tune, I can promise you it's just a very high risk. Things will break down. Okay, finally, let's talk about your improvisation vocabulary, limited improvisation vocabulary. Can you take

each chord from the tune that you want to play, isolate the chord, and improvise through various regions of that sound. Say the root to the seventh, the third to the ninth, the fifth to the eleventh, the seventh to the thirteenth. And can you do so using arpeggio on scale movement? Can you add tension notes to the arpeggio on scale movement?

right? Half step approachments, upper and lower neighboring tones, right? And again, if you cannot answer those questions with a resounding yes, then your improvisation vocabulary is limited. It just is. And with a limited vocabulary, trying to improvise through a set of changes. Again, there's a high risk that when playing the tune, things will break down. So

You want to make sure that you, again, isolate the chords within the tune. Practice improvising different regions of the sound from the root to the 13th. Can you use arpeggio scale movement? Can you add tension tones, tension notes to the arpeggio and scale movement? These are essential jazz pianos, jazz skills, whether you're a pianist or instrumentalist, these are essential skills needed.

to have a sufficient improvisation vocabulary that will allow you to easily navigate through the progressions of a tune improvisationally. Okay, so with all that being said, it's important to know that deficiency in any one of those areas is enough to bring the playing of a tune to a screeching halt.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (28:47.816)
and deficiencies in more than one of those areas raises the odds of tune breakdown exponentially. It just does. And this is precisely why this podcast is called Jazz Piano Skills and not Jazz Piano Tunes. To play tunes, you must have a

of essential skills, like the ones I just talked about. So Robbie, I would suggest that the difficulty that you are experiencing when trying to play a treatment of a tune from the start to the finish without without breaking down is a sign telling you to

place more emphasis on these essential skills. And if you do so, I can guarantee you that the tune playing your tune playing will begin to take care of itself. It will. Wow. Great question to start the new year. And as always, Robbie, if further clarification is needed,

please do not hesitate to reach out to me. Again, I'm happy to spend some time with you exploring your question and my answer in much more detail. All right, so let's discover, learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover, learn and play, fly me to the moon. Okay, so when studying, when learning any tune, I approach, I approach it the same

And again, genre makes no difference. I don't care whether it's a jazz tune, a rock, a country tune, a pop tune, an R &B tune, a folk tune, makes no difference. Here's how I go about it. Number one, I listen. I listen to various artists, vocalists, instrumentalists, pianists, and artists from different genres as well. Number two, harmonic analysis. I always want to check out form, changes, function, common movement, voicings, and

Dr. Bob Lawrence (31:15.982)
rhythm. Number three, melodic analysis. I always transcribe the melody. In other words, by ear, I do not read melodies from lead sheets. I check out phrases, and I like to explore various treatments like ballads, bassas, swings, and then of course, rhythm. And finally, improvisation development. I'll look at chord scale relationships, arpeggio scale movement through the sounds, tension, and of course, rhythm. That's it.

That's my outline for the study and learning of a tune. It's pretty thorough, and it's a pretty complete approach. So this week, our harmonic analysis will have us listening, we'll be determining form, learning the chord changes and harmonic function, and voicings for Fly Me to the Moon. Next week, we'll focus on a melodic analysis and in two weeks,

improvisation. So the education educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we'll listen to definitive recordings of fly me to the moon. Number two, we'll discuss the form of fly me to the moon. Number three, we will discover, learn and play the chord changes for fly me to the moon. Number four, we will discover, learn and play the harmonic function of fly me to the moon.

Number five, we will discover, learn and play my suggested voicings for Fly Me to the Moon. We'll take a look at my left hand shell voicings, and we'll take a look at my two handed structures. So if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to hit the pause button right now. Take a few minutes to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs.

Again, your membership grants you access to the premium content for every weekly podcast episode, which of course, includes all of the podcast packets. And I mentioned it every week that you should have these podcast packets in your hands when listening to the episode. And of course, when practicing so that you get the most out of the lesson today. Okay. All right.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (33:38.112)
Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets in your hands, I want you to grab your lead sheets and you should have in this packet, you should have seven lead sheets. Lead sheet one diagrams the form for Fly Me to the Moon. Lead sheet two identifies all the unique chord changes found within Fly Me to the Moon. Lead sheet three gives you the chord changes, a nice clean lead sheet for the tune.

Number four, sheet four provides you the harmonic function of the chord progression for Fly Me to the Moon. Number five, lead sheet five highlights the common progressions that we are going to highlight and use for ear training purposes. And then finally, lead sheet six and seven deal with voicings. Lead sheet six presents my left hand shell voicings that I use when playing Fly Me to the Moon.

and lead sheet seven presents the two-handed voicings that I use when playing Fly Me to the Moon. So we got a lot to get through as always today. So we need to get busy. typically, typically at this time, I would play a definitive recording of the tune of Fly Me to the Moon, right? But this year, I've decided to change things up a little bit. I have decided to place

my listening suggestions in the Jazz Panel Skills community, in the forums for Fly Me to the Moon. And there are a couple of reasons for this. Number one, I want to be able to suggest more than one tune that I would recommend listening to. And number two, I want to preserve as much time as possible for the educational content.

of the podcast that podcast episode, right? So I want to preserve as much time for education as possible. So right now, what I would do is head on over to the community and spend some time listening to the recordings that I have provided links for before going any further. And once you have listened to the recommended recordings, then I want you to grab your lead sheets. I want you to grab lead sheet one.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (36:01.302)
and let's take a look at that. And with lead sheet one, we're gonna check out the form of Fly Me to the Moon, which is a standard jazz, jazz form.