Menina Ilza Tutorial
Menina Ilza is a composition by Hermeto Pascoal. Hermeto wrote this composition – and many others – for his wife Ilza.
Hermeto wrote this piece in he mid-70s and originally recorded the tune in 1976. Hermeto liked the piece so much that he performed the tune in many different settings, from solo piano, to big band arrangements.
In this lesson Jovino presents a beautiful solo piano arrangement and applies some interesting chord voicings and harmonic principles.
Enjoy this wonderful composition by one of Brazil’s greatest musical minds.
Lesson Downloads
-
“Menina Ilza” Chord Changes File Type: pdf -
“Menina Ilza” Transcription File Type: pdf
Related Lessons
We start the lesson by recapping the basic theory behind sus chords and then explore them in context of major and minor 251s
Upper structure triads are complex sounding altered dominant chords. They will add texture and sophistication to your playing.
Slash chords contain 2 bits of info, the 1st letter indicates what chord should be played & the 2nd letter specifies the bass note of the chord.
Practice Tips
-
This lesson incorporates theory areas covered elsewhere in the PianoGroove syllabus.
-
The form contains a lot of sus chords, and so check out the related lessons above to ensure you are familiar with the theory.
-
Jovino also incorporates slash voicings into his arrangement. If this is a new concept to you, again check out the lesson above.
-
Don't forget to listen to the various recordings of this tune. Listening is the ultimate source of inspiration.
Thanks once again Jovino for an inspiring walk-through of this wonderful tune, as well as the background information you provide about it at the beginning.
Aline Morena kindly sent me a copy of the lead-sheet, and I’ve spent a fascinating few weeks discovering Hermeto’s chord notation system! As chance would have it, I’ve been working on voicings for it this past week, and of course the tutorial introduced me to a whole bunch of new ones – love the Esus2 spread voicing and the diminshed voicing in particular.
I originally came up with slightly different harmonizations for the descending chromatic chords, starting from the Em9, which I’ve been playing as an Ebmaj9 (LH: Eb-Bb-Eb / RH: F-Bb-D).
At the end of the run I’ve been playing B with #13 and both #9 and b9, then transpose up a half-step to C (#13,#9,b9):
LH: D#-A-D / RH: D#-A-D ==> LH: E-A#-D# / RH: E-A#-D#
Sorry for clumsy notation, I need to learn Sibelius…
Martin