Fly Me To The Moon Part 2
Fly Me To The Moon is a famous tune and even the casual jazz listener would recognise the distinctive melody. Over the years it’s been covered by many well known vocalists – Frank Sinatra perhaps being the most famous.
It’s a great cocktail tune and can be played both as a ballad and at a medium swing. We will start of by creating a ballad arrangement and add in some interesting reharmonisations and passing chords. The second time through we will then up the tempo and play the tune with a swing feel.
Throughout both lessons we will be applying block chord harmony using the ‘4 way close’. Block chords are particularly useful for harmonising step wise melody lines. If you take a look through the form you can see the majority of the melody moves in steps which makes it a fantastic tune for applying this theory.
We will be using a mixture of root based and rootless voicings for the up tempo version and I would always recommend playing through a jazz standard with just the left hand voicings first so that you are familiar with the voicing shapes and sounds.
Related Lessons
Block chords are used for harmonising a melody line by moving the notes of the chord in parallel, following the same rhythm as the melody.
Rootless voicings sound more professional than root based 7th chords and they voice lead much more smoothly in a 251 progression.
To play a rootless voicing we leave out the root of the chord and play one of the upper extensions to get a richer, more colourful sound.
Practice Tips
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This arrangement demonstrates how to combine both a ballad and up tempo arrangement into one performance.
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Take this concept and apply it to another tune you are working on.
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In particular, work on the change of feel. It can be challenging to play a rubato ballad and then immeditately 'switch the gear' to a medium swing feel and so this is definitely something that you should practice.
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Other tunes that this style would work on could be "Days Of Wine & Roses", "There Will Never Be Another You" or "Autumn Leaves", to name three examples.
Hi Hayden,
what scales do you use to solo over fly me to the moon? can you use mainly C major and relative A minor? because most of the chords are in the Key of A minor?
many thanks Simon.