Fly Me To The Moon Tutorial
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
251 progressions are essential components of the jazz language and so taking the time to memorise them will greatly benefit your playing.
Passing chords are temporary stepping stones between chords, adding variety and making your playing sound more interesting & dynamic.
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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"Fly Me To The Moon" can be played both as a ballad and with a medium swing.
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Similar voicings can be used for both versions so spend some time to get them under your fingers.
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Even at faster tempos, it's a good idea to include at least some of the root notes if you are playing solo piano.
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In part 2 of this tutorial we will also introduce some left hand voicings.
How do I get to the second or swingy lesson? It’s not coming up as an option. Thx, k
Hi Karen,
Apologies for the late reply here, I’m just catching up on comments and emails after the Xmas/New year break.
If you scroll to the top of this page, you will see a green link which takes you back to the course under the lesson title. The course link says “Block Chords & Drop 2”
If you click on that link, it will take you here to the course page: https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/block-chords-drop-2-voicings/
And you will see that part 1 and part 2 of this tutorial are listed together on the course page.
Here is also the direct link to part 2: https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/fly-me-to-the-moon-2/
Let me know if I can help further and a very happy new year to you!
Cheers,
Hayden