Midnight Mood Tutorial
Joe Zawinul’s Midnight Mood is a 24 measure A-B tune. The melody and chord changes are repetitive throughout the form which creates the opportunity to reharmonise the changes and add interesting chord substitutions.
We start the lesson by playing through the form with just left hand voicings and the melody and then add some bigger sounding two handed voicings the second time through.
In the final 5 minutes of the lesson we explore a range of chord substitutions and talk about the best way to add your own chord substitutions to your playing.
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
Passing chords are temporary stepping stones between chords, adding variety and making your playing sound more interesting & dynamic.
In a minor 251, the 5 chord will be an altered dominant chord. In this lesson we apply altered dominant chords to the major 251 progression.
Practice Tips
- Check out the lesson on sus chords for more information on this type of voicing.
I’ve been trying to get the basic LH chords down before moving on to the second half, but finally did so and the voicings sound amazing! This is where you really have to notate them, though, because it’s going to be hard to remember them all if you aren’t playing the tune every day or two.
Hey Martin, glad you like the voicings… it’s an unusual tune and so I thought I’d approach it slightly differently to the traditional standards we cover. Sure thing, leave that with me and I will transcribe and notate the arrangement… I’ll email you when it’s finished. Cheers! Hayden
Oh thanks! I’ve just been logging them for now in my ChordPolyPad MIDI app (iOS), but am still looking for a better way to store visually batches of chord voicings for songs. I find screen-based notation apps overly fiddly.
I feel your pain Martin… screen based notation apps are a nightmare to work with! It sounds like a great idea to build up a depository of voicings in your ChordPolyPad. I’ll ask some friend if they know of any other solutions for you. Cheers, Hayden