Chords for Sondheim deconstructs "All The Things You Are" - Jerome Kern
Tempo:
82.85 bpm
Chords used:
Ab
Eb
E
A
Db
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
I got a scholarship, a prize called the Hutchinson Prize, which allowed me to take to study music,
and I did with Milton Babbitt, who is, and even then was, the avant-garde composer, but who had
a particular interest, and has a particular interest, in show music and jazz.
God, imagine
getting to work with a guy like that.
And what we did was, which was wonderful, we would spend the
first hour dissecting De Silva, Brown and Henderson, and the next three hours dissecting Beethoven.
So you've got both sides.
Exactly.
And his point was that the compositional techniques are exactly
the same, whether you're writing a three-minute piece or an hour piece.
And they are.
And we
would, I can still, I taught at Oxford a few years ago, and I repeated, and I remember it so well,
his analysis of All the Things You Are, which is, you know, some of Kern's forms are extraordinary,
and that may be the only song in which the [Db] tonic is never stated until the last chord.
Do you play that tune?
Do you play that?
I used to, [Ab] but I don't anymore, and his harmony's so
subtle, I wouldn't do it.
You know, he's one of the few guys who makes a distinction between the
kind of vamp that goes,
[Bb] and the [Eb] kind that goes.
[Gb] Whether you have the third in the bass or the
fifth in the bass, that's the kind of thing he does, and that's what Milton kept pointing out
to me, so I wouldn't play it.
But if you study All the Things You Are, it starts in the relative
minor, ends up in the major, but it never states the tonic.
I never knew that.
Let me just play
play all [Gbm] of it, please.
[Bm] [E]
[A] [D] [Db]
[Dbm] [Gbm] [B]
[E] [A]
[Ab] [Bb] [Db]
[Ab] [D] [Db]
[G] [C] [Eb]
[Gbm] [Bm]
[E] [A] [D]
[E] [Ab] [D]
[Ab] [Em]
[A] [Bm] [A] It's a great [E] tune, but you know, it's a regular A, [Eb] A, B, A form, and only in passing does it.
I learned [Fm] it in A flat.
[Bbm] [Eb] That's the only [Ab] time, and even there, you've got the seventh [Abm] in it,
but everything else, [G] and it's also a circle of fifths, but the fifths break when he does the
tritone, and it's the defining tritone of the keys coming from [Ab] the keys going to it.
It goes on and on,
and I asked Milton, I said, you mean he thought of all these things while he's writing this,
what seems like a tune that just comes out of nowhere?
Just falls in there.
He said, no,
he said, it's like learning to drive a stick shift car.
You get the technique, and it's in you forever
and ever.
Once you've learned the technique, you are applying it all the time.
I remember I was
talking to Dick Rogers about people say we're in love, and I said, you know, it's so wonderful the
way the release of that is the inversion of the main tune, you know, don't throw the case,
and the release goes, and he said, he never thought of it himself.
He said, I'm sorry you
told me, but you see, it was innate.
I mean, because it came from inside.
[Eb] It's the inversion.
[Cm]
[G] [Gb] [C] It [Ab] just [E] turns it upside down.
Amazing.
Absolutely, and these things then become a kind of second
nature.
Although [Fm] Oscar told me, Hammerstein, because you know, you wrote a lot with Curran,
including all the things you are, that he would be sitting in a room writing lyric, and in the
next room, he'd hear something.
I'm obviously making this up, but this is the idea.
[Bbm] [Eb]
[Ab] [Fm] [Eb]
[Bbm] [Eb] He would
go through every conceivable note, and once he'd decide on that one, he'd go on to the next one.
So these tunes that sound as if they were written, you know, in a breath, it's like E.B. White's
writing.
It sounds so simple,
and I did with Milton Babbitt, who is, and even then was, the avant-garde composer, but who had
a particular interest, and has a particular interest, in show music and jazz.
God, imagine
getting to work with a guy like that.
And what we did was, which was wonderful, we would spend the
first hour dissecting De Silva, Brown and Henderson, and the next three hours dissecting Beethoven.
So you've got both sides.
Exactly.
And his point was that the compositional techniques are exactly
the same, whether you're writing a three-minute piece or an hour piece.
And they are.
And we
would, I can still, I taught at Oxford a few years ago, and I repeated, and I remember it so well,
his analysis of All the Things You Are, which is, you know, some of Kern's forms are extraordinary,
and that may be the only song in which the [Db] tonic is never stated until the last chord.
Do you play that tune?
Do you play that?
I used to, [Ab] but I don't anymore, and his harmony's so
subtle, I wouldn't do it.
You know, he's one of the few guys who makes a distinction between the
kind of vamp that goes,
[Bb] and the [Eb] kind that goes.
[Gb] Whether you have the third in the bass or the
fifth in the bass, that's the kind of thing he does, and that's what Milton kept pointing out
to me, so I wouldn't play it.
But if you study All the Things You Are, it starts in the relative
minor, ends up in the major, but it never states the tonic.
I never knew that.
Let me just play
play all [Gbm] of it, please.
[Bm] [E]
[A] [D] [Db]
[Dbm] [Gbm] [B]
[E] [A]
[Ab] [Bb] [Db]
[Ab] [D] [Db]
[G] [C] [Eb]
[Gbm] [Bm]
[E] [A] [D]
[E] [Ab] [D]
[Ab] [Em]
[A] [Bm] [A] It's a great [E] tune, but you know, it's a regular A, [Eb] A, B, A form, and only in passing does it.
I learned [Fm] it in A flat.
[Bbm] [Eb] That's the only [Ab] time, and even there, you've got the seventh [Abm] in it,
but everything else, [G] and it's also a circle of fifths, but the fifths break when he does the
tritone, and it's the defining tritone of the keys coming from [Ab] the keys going to it.
It goes on and on,
and I asked Milton, I said, you mean he thought of all these things while he's writing this,
what seems like a tune that just comes out of nowhere?
Just falls in there.
He said, no,
he said, it's like learning to drive a stick shift car.
You get the technique, and it's in you forever
and ever.
Once you've learned the technique, you are applying it all the time.
I remember I was
talking to Dick Rogers about people say we're in love, and I said, you know, it's so wonderful the
way the release of that is the inversion of the main tune, you know, don't throw the case,
and the release goes, and he said, he never thought of it himself.
He said, I'm sorry you
told me, but you see, it was innate.
I mean, because it came from inside.
[Eb] It's the inversion.
[Cm]
[G] [Gb] [C] It [Ab] just [E] turns it upside down.
Amazing.
Absolutely, and these things then become a kind of second
nature.
Although [Fm] Oscar told me, Hammerstein, because you know, you wrote a lot with Curran,
including all the things you are, that he would be sitting in a room writing lyric, and in the
next room, he'd hear something.
I'm obviously making this up, but this is the idea.
[Bbm] [Eb]
[Ab] [Fm] [Eb]
[Bbm] [Eb] He would
go through every conceivable note, and once he'd decide on that one, he'd go on to the next one.
So these tunes that sound as if they were written, you know, in a breath, it's like E.B. White's
writing.
It sounds so simple,
Key:
Ab
Eb
E
A
Db
Ab
Eb
E
I got a scholarship, a prize called the Hutchinson Prize, which allowed me to take to study music,
and I did with Milton Babbitt, who is, and even then was, the avant-garde _ composer, but who had
a particular interest, and has a particular interest, in show music and jazz.
God, imagine
getting to work with a guy like that.
And what we did was, which was wonderful, we would spend the
first hour dissecting De Silva, Brown and Henderson, and the next three hours dissecting Beethoven.
So you've got both sides.
Exactly.
And his point was that the compositional techniques are exactly
the same, whether you're writing a three-minute piece or an hour piece.
And they are.
And we
would, I can still, I taught at Oxford a few years ago, and I repeated, and I remember it so well,
his analysis of All the Things You Are, which is, you know, some of Kern's forms are extraordinary,
and that may be the only song in which the [Db] tonic is never stated until the last chord.
Do you play that tune?
Do you play that?
I used to, [Ab] but I don't anymore, and his harmony's so
subtle, I wouldn't do it.
You know, he's one of the few guys who makes a distinction between the
kind of vamp that goes, _ _
[Bb] and the [Eb] kind that goes.
_ _ [Gb] Whether you have the third in the bass or the
fifth in the bass, that's the kind of thing he does, and that's what Milton kept pointing out
to me, so I wouldn't play it.
But if you study All the Things You Are, it starts in the relative
minor, ends up in the major, but it never states the tonic.
I never knew that.
Let me just play
play all [Gbm] of it, please.
_ [Bm] _ _ [E] _ _
[A] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [Db] _
_ _ [Dbm] _ _ [Gbm] _ _ [B] _ _
[E] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [Db] _
_ _ [Ab] _ _ [D] _ _ [Db] _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ [Gbm] _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _
[E] _ [A] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ [A] _ [Bm] _ _ _ [A] It's a great [E] tune, but you know, it's a regular A, [Eb] A, B, A form, and only in passing does it.
I learned [Fm] it in A flat.
[Bbm] _ _ [Eb] That's the only [Ab] time, and even there, you've got the seventh [Abm] in it,
but everything else, [G] and it's also a circle of fifths, but the fifths break when he does the
tritone, and it's the defining tritone of the keys coming from [Ab] the keys going to it.
It goes on and on,
and I asked Milton, I said, you mean he thought of all these things while he's writing this,
what seems like a tune that just comes out of nowhere?
Just falls in there.
He said, no,
he said, it's like learning to drive a stick shift car.
You get the technique, and it's in you forever
and ever.
Once you've learned the technique, you are applying it all the time.
I remember I was
talking to Dick Rogers about people say we're in love, and I said, you know, it's so wonderful the
way the release of that is the inversion of the main tune, you know, don't throw the case,
and the release goes, and he said, he never thought of it himself.
He said, I'm sorry you
told me, but you see, it was innate.
I mean, because it came from inside.
[Eb] It's the inversion.
[Cm] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ [Gb] _ _ [C] _ _ It [Ab] just [E] turns it upside down.
Amazing.
Absolutely, and these things then become a kind of second
nature.
Although [Fm] Oscar told me, Hammerstein, because you know, you wrote a lot with Curran,
including all the things you are, that he would be sitting in a room writing lyric, and in the
next room, he'd hear something.
I'm obviously making this up, but this is the idea.
_ [Bbm] _ _ [Eb] _ _
[Ab] _ _ [Fm] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _
_ _ [Bbm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ He would
go through every conceivable note, and once he'd decide on that one, he'd go on to the next one.
So these tunes that sound as if they were written, you know, in a breath, it's like E.B. White's
writing.
It sounds so simple,
and I did with Milton Babbitt, who is, and even then was, the avant-garde _ composer, but who had
a particular interest, and has a particular interest, in show music and jazz.
God, imagine
getting to work with a guy like that.
And what we did was, which was wonderful, we would spend the
first hour dissecting De Silva, Brown and Henderson, and the next three hours dissecting Beethoven.
So you've got both sides.
Exactly.
And his point was that the compositional techniques are exactly
the same, whether you're writing a three-minute piece or an hour piece.
And they are.
And we
would, I can still, I taught at Oxford a few years ago, and I repeated, and I remember it so well,
his analysis of All the Things You Are, which is, you know, some of Kern's forms are extraordinary,
and that may be the only song in which the [Db] tonic is never stated until the last chord.
Do you play that tune?
Do you play that?
I used to, [Ab] but I don't anymore, and his harmony's so
subtle, I wouldn't do it.
You know, he's one of the few guys who makes a distinction between the
kind of vamp that goes, _ _
[Bb] and the [Eb] kind that goes.
_ _ [Gb] Whether you have the third in the bass or the
fifth in the bass, that's the kind of thing he does, and that's what Milton kept pointing out
to me, so I wouldn't play it.
But if you study All the Things You Are, it starts in the relative
minor, ends up in the major, but it never states the tonic.
I never knew that.
Let me just play
play all [Gbm] of it, please.
_ [Bm] _ _ [E] _ _
[A] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [Db] _
_ _ [Dbm] _ _ [Gbm] _ _ [B] _ _
[E] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [Db] _
_ _ [Ab] _ _ [D] _ _ [Db] _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ [Gbm] _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _
[E] _ [A] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ [A] _ [Bm] _ _ _ [A] It's a great [E] tune, but you know, it's a regular A, [Eb] A, B, A form, and only in passing does it.
I learned [Fm] it in A flat.
[Bbm] _ _ [Eb] That's the only [Ab] time, and even there, you've got the seventh [Abm] in it,
but everything else, [G] and it's also a circle of fifths, but the fifths break when he does the
tritone, and it's the defining tritone of the keys coming from [Ab] the keys going to it.
It goes on and on,
and I asked Milton, I said, you mean he thought of all these things while he's writing this,
what seems like a tune that just comes out of nowhere?
Just falls in there.
He said, no,
he said, it's like learning to drive a stick shift car.
You get the technique, and it's in you forever
and ever.
Once you've learned the technique, you are applying it all the time.
I remember I was
talking to Dick Rogers about people say we're in love, and I said, you know, it's so wonderful the
way the release of that is the inversion of the main tune, you know, don't throw the case,
and the release goes, and he said, he never thought of it himself.
He said, I'm sorry you
told me, but you see, it was innate.
I mean, because it came from inside.
[Eb] It's the inversion.
[Cm] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ [Gb] _ _ [C] _ _ It [Ab] just [E] turns it upside down.
Amazing.
Absolutely, and these things then become a kind of second
nature.
Although [Fm] Oscar told me, Hammerstein, because you know, you wrote a lot with Curran,
including all the things you are, that he would be sitting in a room writing lyric, and in the
next room, he'd hear something.
I'm obviously making this up, but this is the idea.
_ [Bbm] _ _ [Eb] _ _
[Ab] _ _ [Fm] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _
_ _ [Bbm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ He would
go through every conceivable note, and once he'd decide on that one, he'd go on to the next one.
So these tunes that sound as if they were written, you know, in a breath, it's like E.B. White's
writing.
It sounds so simple,