After learning a jazz standard you may find it difficult to recall the chord changes
in the long term especially if you're learning a lot of them so i'm going to share with you
how i memorize chords to jazz standards so i don't forget them coming right up so to
demonstrate today we're gonna look at this jazz standard called all the things you are
this is a very popular jazz standard and the reason i'm choosing this one is because there
are a lot of chord changes in it so this is a great example of one that may be difficult
for you to memorize in the long term but before we do that i want you to know there are two ways
to memorize chords to jazz standards so number one is to do it by reading a chord chart which
is a great way to do it the only thing is we're going to have to implement a few additional steps
and a lot more repetition in order to internalize those chords so this is you're looking at a chord
chart like we're about to do right now and you're memorizing them that way and by sheer repetition
you're going to have internalized those chords so that's way number one number two is you're
actually learning the chords by ear now this is an advanced skill however this skill gets a lot
easier the more jazz standards you learn the more jazz standards you learn the more you'll recognize
the sounds of chord progressions so learning them by ear won't be quite as difficult even if
you go and check it with a chord chart later now learning it by ear will ensure that you do use a
lot of repetition and this could be a good way to go at least a goal to shoot for because it's going
to help you memorize them a lot better however with either of these ways it's important that
before you even attempt to learn chord changes to a jazz standard that you know the melody
really well before getting started because without the melody you don't really have
anything to relate the chords to and when you have that melody in place first it's going to
make it stick a lot better in the long run now let's take a look at all the things you are right
right that's the first part of the melody of all the things you are so the first things i like
to look for when i'm trying to memorize chords is what key are we in okay so we have four flats here
so if you know just some basic music theory you know that that's in the key of a flat major now a
flat major now that doesn't necessarily mean that we always start with an a flat major and in this
case we don't start with an a flat major chord so what chord do we start with is the second thing
i look for what is the first chord that we start on and in this particular case it's f minor seven
so when i'm relating the melody you know even if you don't play a chordal instrument like me
right you wanna think about that melee note
as it relates to the arpeggio or the chord tones of that f minor seven so what key are we in i know
that we're in a flat major and i know that the first chord is f minor seven this if if anything
i just memorized this it's a flat major is the key and we start on f minor seven that's immediately
going to set me up for long term success especially as we go about the rest of this tune
here now the absolute key that i really want you to take away from today's video is to memorize the
chords to jazz standards we really don't want to be thinking about them as f minor 7 b flat minor 7
e flat 7 a flat major 7 in fact if we're thinking about it that way we're very unlikely to actually
memorize them instead what we want to think of them as is chord progressions but even more
important than thinking about them in terms of chord progressions we want to think about them
within tonal centers i'll talk more about that in one second so the real key in my mind is analysis
of the chords and when i'm talking about analysis i'm talking about roman numeral analysis so
for example if i know that we're in the key of a flat major and i ask myself what is this f
minor seventh chord in the diatonic series of a flat major i would know that it's the six chord
right so if we start with a flat major as our one chord then we go to our two chord which is b flat
minor seven and then we go to c minor seven which is our three chord and then we go to d flat major
which is our iv chord and then our five chord is e flat seven and our six chord is finally f minor
seven so it's important if you wanna do roman numeral analysis that you understand where chord
progressions come from which is exactly what i just showed you at least in a major key so moving
forward we know that we start on the sixth chord now the next chord is a b flat minor seven right
right that's the melody note associated with it and again i don't want to just think about
what is this one chord by itself let's look ahead for a second and look at this e flat seven right
e flat seven resolves to a flat major 7. now important to look here is that all of these
bass notes f b flat e flat and a flat are moving in fourths okay moving in force and whenever i
see moving in force like the b flat minor seven to the e flat seven that's a dominant seventh chord
i wanna ask myself is this a two five one chord progression and the answer is yes now a
2-5-1 chord progression is the most common chord progression in all of jazz so we want to become
incredibly good at recognizing what a 2-5-1 chord progression is and making sure that yes we can
put a name to this it's a two five one it's not enough just to be able to hear what it sounds like
we wanna put a name to it because that's going to help us ultimately memorize this jazz standard so
the first line is f minor seven that's the sixth chord b flat minor seven is the two chord e flat
seven is the five chord and a flat major seven is the one chord so it actually takes us till bar
four to get to the parent chord of this tune a flat major now before we continue i said earlier
that it's not important just to look at jazz standards within terms of chord progressions
versus chords it's also important to look at tonal centers okay so we have a flat major seven
which i would call a resolution basically we start this phrase on f minor seven and we're resolving
to a flat major seven how are we doing that a six two five one chord progression all i really need
to know is that the first tonal center that we're resolving to is a flat major right i know the key
it's a flat major i know the first chord it's f minor 7 and i know the first cadence
resolves to a flat major seven right so what i will do after that is i wanna look and see are
there other cadences here that we're resolving to well for example i see that here in bar
7 we resolve to this c major 7 for two bars so even just by listening to the melody right we have
right i see this g7 resolving to this c major seven right and that's moving in a fourth movement
right so this is a five to one chord here so g7 to c major seven so five one that to me looks
like a resolution that i wanna pay attention to so let's uncover though what in bar five this d
flat major seventh chord is right remember we came from a flat major and so a flat major is actually
coming down to that d-flat major seven which is actually just the four chord so we're taking a
look at this and we're realizing that d-flat major seven is actually associated with a flat major 7.
like this is important this is why we really want to know roman numeral analysis and understand how
to relate chords to a key center because then we can start organizing the tune so then we
have another cadence that goes g7 to cmaj7 that is not in the key of a flat major so our second
tonal center here is c major 7. so let's take a look at this color-coded analysis here of just
these first eight bars right just these first eight bars i've color coded it blue for a
flat major and green for c major now we do a lot of this color coding in our inner circle
membership because it's just another way to visualize the organization of a tune right
so let's start asking the important question the important questions again are what key are we in
a flat major what's the first chord it's f minor seven what's the first cadence that we end at
that's a flat major okay the parent key what's the second cadence it's c major right so now i already
know the things i just really have to hold on to is a flat major and then c major right a flat
major and c major and how do we tie that together with the melody f minor seven b flat minor seven
right that's e flat seven that's a flat major seven d flat major seven the four chord g seven
c major seven right so i'm really relating the melody to the different chords and this is helping
okay let's go back here again to bar number nine again i kind of want to take a look at this chord
progression and figure out what does it actually mean automatically i'm looking at this f minor
seven b flat seven to this e flat major seven and because i've studied enough jazz standards i know
that this is a two five 1 in e flat major right and this c minor 7 would be a 6 chord of e flat
major so if i'm seeing a 2 5 1 to e flat major to me that spells out another cadence here that
we're resolving to and the c minor 7 must be related to the e flat major 7. now what's
cool again with analysis is we start to look up patterns that the composer included into the tune
looking back here at our color coding we have our 6 2 5 1 to a flat major in the first four bars
then when we get to bar 9 we have 6 2 5 1 only in a different key in the key of e flat major
seven so wow now this is becoming even easier to memorize this jazz standard because i just
gotta remember the first chord we're starting with the first cadence is a flat major seven
the second cadence is c major seven now the third cadence is e flat major but i also know that it's
the exact same chord progression as the first four bars right now if this is a little fuzzy for you
still or you feel like this is still overwhelming i assure you as we keep going through this tune
it's gonna make even more sense how this is broken down so let's go back and look at the next chord
here next chord is a flat major seven now what is a flat major seven to the e flat major right
that's the four chord right that's the four chord remember back up here in bar five the d flat major
seven was the four chord of a flat major seven so so far we're following the same formula with these
chord progressions just in a different key then we have a 2 5 1 to g major 7 a 2 5 1 to g major 7
right so again the only difference here it from bar 6 up here where we had just a g7 is we only
had a five to one well here in bar fourteen we have a two five one although sometimes people
will just play a five one a d7 to a g major seven as well right so essentially what we're
dealing with again is the exact same formula we go to the four chord then we have another cadence
right this is our fourth cadence this is g major seven right and we get there from a five chord
so i've color coded red for e flat major and i've color coded yellow for g major right
again same formulas the six two five one four chord progression followed by a 5 1 of some sort
to our new cadence our new key center that we're in okay excellent now if you know anything about
this tune and you listen to it so hopefully you've listened to it a lot and again you know the melody
first and foremost then you know that we're actually now coming to the bridge so this e7 here
that's just a dominant six chord that's resolving here to the two because look over here in
bar 19 it's a g major seven we get there from a two five one we hang out here and resolve for two
bars okay so we aren't doing a new key center introducing a new key center we're just simply
repeating at the key center that we arrived to in our previous cadence right we have
right that's the melody note right there the melody right there so we're going to g major
seven this is our bridge all right now two five one right two five one
most basic chord progression in jazz now we have to go to another key because if we look ahead
we go to e major seven how do we get there two five one e major seven so then we have
okay then a c7 that's the five of six what's the six chord six chord is f minor seven we're
basically going back to the last a section of the tune here right so the bridge is over here so
we have for the bridge an a minor seven d d7 g major 7 then f minor 7 b7 e major 7 okay again
looking at the color coding for the bridge it's still yellow here because we have the g major that
we had arrived to from before but then we have purple for e major 7 right so it helps us divide
this up but again the chord progressions aren't different right it's a 2 5 1 and a 2 5 1. this
makes it easier to understand when we think about it this way so so far again our first cadence
goes to a flat major our second cadence goes to c major seven bars nine through sixteen
are basically a carbon copy of the first eight bars just transposed to different keys so then
we go to e flat major seven and then we go to g major seven the bridge is just
back to g major seven two five then another two five in e major seven
right and then we're turning back to the a section right we're back to the top of the a
section again at this f minor seven that's the sixth chord so the next phrase here
is really just the same as the first four bars we have a six
two five one right a six two five one so f minor seven and the melody's the same two by the way
then we change it up here we get to a d flat major seven now this is probably the hardest
part to memorize right here because it breaks the pattern that we've become accustomed to
right and this is where a little bit more music theory can get involved here and we
have to really think about it a little bit more but again that's just one section that doesn't
have a pattern to it right so it's d flat major seven that's our four chord we already knew that
but then we go to a g flat 13 i call that the four seven of four right
g flat seven is like the blues harmony four of d flat major seven so
then we have a c minor seven that's a three chord right the three chord again all this is blue so
it's blue because it's a flat major
and then we go to a b diminished seven that's a flat three diminished it's a passing diminished
chord so if you understand diminished harmony that's helpful to know but most importantly
it's just important to see that we go from c to b to b flat minor seven which is a two
five one in a flat major right so that whole section there from bars 29 30 through 132 is just
four four of four three b to minus seven passing diminished flat three diminished two five one to
our parent key center which is a flat major okay so when we really break this tune down a lot of
this tune is just the pattern of a six two five one four followed by a five one in a new key okay
so a flat major to c major right then we repeat that six two five one to four but we have e flat
major then we go to g major right so so far we have one two three four different keys that
all the things you are cycles through but then we know that the first three bars the first section
of the bridge is still in g major right and again we know the melody really well so we can follow
it with our ears really nicely as well then we know that one key center change in the bridge
is still just a 2 5 1 like we had before but in e major the purple right then we're just
turning around back to the a section so it's largely just a repeat of the first a section
but with this funny section in here where we basically have passing diminished stuff
cycling to the two five one at the end right now obviously i understand here that this does require
you know some theory obviously i understand that all the things you are is a more complicated
tune but i wanted to show you this tune because these are the kinds of tunes and
jazz that get people confused that get people frustrated because they forget the chord changes
so memorize that melody really well analyze break things down into chord progressions and even
further than that make sure you're breaking things down into tonal centers now something i mentioned
at the beginning of the video is learning chords by ear so listening to a record and actually
learning the chord progressions by ear instead of going straight to a chord chart that's an advanced
skill and it's one that you can learn so on the screen right now i have a video that gives you
some steps to actually start learning chords and chords progressions by ear it's going to be really
helpful so go ahead and click on to that next video make sure you like this video if you found
it helpful subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and we'll see you in the next video cheers