Jazz Harmony Analysis: Learn the Harmony, Not Just the Chords (Our Love Is Here to Stay)
Updated: Sep 13
When you're learning a new jazz standard...
What's the first thing you should learn?
Most jazz musicians would probably say:
The chords.
And I agree.
But I want to add one very important word.
👉 Don't simply learn the chords. Learn the harmony.
Those may sound like the same thing.
They're not.
Learning the chords can mean looking at a lead sheet and memorizing:
F Major 7.
G Minor 7.
C7.
Another chord.
Another chord.
Another chord.
Thirty-two measures of chord symbols that somehow have to find their way into your memory.
But learning the harmony means something entirely different.
It means asking:
Where is this chord going?
How does it function?
How is it moving?
What relationship does it have to the chords around it?
Have I seen this relationship before?
And perhaps most importantly...
👉 Will I see it again?
That's harmonic understanding.
And that's where we begin our four-week study of George and Ira Gershwin's beautiful standard:
Our Love Is Here to Stay.
A New Tune. The Same Skills.
Every month at Jazz Piano Skills, we begin a new tune.
This month:
Our Love Is Here to Stay.
Next week we'll study melody.
Then improvisation.
Then solo piano.
New tune.
New melody.
New harmonic progression.
But here's what's important...
👉 We're not starting over.
We're using the same educational process.
The same musical facts.
The same fundamental relationships.
The same skills we've been developing month after month.
Why?
Because the objective isn't simply to add Our Love Is Here to Stay to our repertoire.
The tune is our musical laboratory.
It's another musical environment in which we can develop skills that eventually allow us to approach any tune.
How Do We Actually Learn Jazz?
This month, we're also beginning a conversation that will continue throughout all four weeks.
And it starts with a deceptively simple question:
👉 How do we actually learn jazz?
If you've studied jazz for any length of time, you've heard the advice.
Listen to the greats.
Study the greats.
Sing their solos.
Transcribe their solos.
Play along with recordings.
Analyze their phrases.
Transpose those phrases into different keys.
Learn the language.
And let me be perfectly clear...
That's all excellent advice.
We absolutely should study the masters.
But there's another question worth asking.
Is jazz language primarily something that exists outside of us...
Waiting for us to collect it?
If Jazz Language Is Something We Collect...
Think about this.
Oscar Peterson.
Chick Corea.
Keith Jarrett.
Three extraordinary jazz pianists.
Same twelve notes.
Same fundamental harmonic relationships.
Same fundamental rhythmic possibilities.
All inherited the jazz tradition.
All listened.
All studied.
All absorbed what came before them.
And yet...
You don't need thirty seconds to figure out who's playing.
Oscar sounds like Oscar.
Chick sounds like Chick.
Keith sounds like Keith.
So here's the question:
If becoming a jazz musician is primarily about acquiring enough vocabulary from the musicians who came before us...
👉 Why don't great jazz musicians eventually sound more alike?
Perhaps because the masters aren't simply giving us vocabulary to collect.
Perhaps they're showing us something much more important.
They're showing us what's possible.
The Masters Give Us Evidence of Possibility
Oscar Peterson shows us what's possible.
Chick Corea shows us what's possible.
Keith Jarrett shows us what's possible.
Bill Evans.
Bud Powell.
Herbie Hancock.
Each takes the fundamental materials of music...
And produces remarkably different musical results.
So perhaps when we study a great musician, the only question shouldn't be:
"What did they play?"
Maybe another question needs to enter the conversation:
👉 "What can I do with the musical materials they were using?"
That's a very different educational question.
Because now we're no longer simply trying to acquire answers.
We're developing the ability to produce answers.
And that distinction is enormous.
What Goes In...and What Comes Out?
There's certainly information that needs to go into us.
We need to listen.
Study.
Imitate.
Analyze.
Practice.
Understand the tradition.
But eventually...
Something has to begin coming out.
Your ears.
Your understanding.
Your instincts.
Your rhythmic imagination.
Your curiosity.
Your creativity.
Your musical decisions.
Your voice.
And perhaps that's one of the great responsibilities of jazz education.
Not simply asking:
"What does this student need me to put in?"
But also:
👉 "What can I help this student pull out?"
Because jazz education doesn't need another Oscar Peterson.
Oscar already took care of that.
It doesn't need another Chick Corea.
Or another Keith Jarrett.
👉 Jazz needs you.
The Seven Musical Facts Give Us a Framework
So how do we begin developing that kind of independence?
By understanding what remains constant.
Every week at Jazz Piano Skills, we review our Seven Musical Facts:
Fact 1: Music is the production of sound and silence.
Fact 2: Sound is produced harmonically and melodically.
Fact 3: Harmonic sound equals chords or voicings.
Fact 4: Melodic sound equals arpeggios and scales.
Fact 5: Harmony and melody have motion.
Fact 6: Movement is decorated with tension—chromaticism.
Fact 7: Rhythm gives everything life.
These aren't seven more things to memorize.
They're a conceptual framework.
A way of organizing music so that when the tune changes...
👉 You don't have to start over.
Jazz Harmony Analysis Is More Than Chord Identification
Jazz harmony analysis teaches us to move beyond identifying chord symbols and begin recognizing the function, motion, and relationships that connect one chord to another.
Because we're studying harmony this week, Fact #3 immediately comes into focus:
Harmonic sound equals chords or voicings.
But if we stop there...
We haven't gone far enough.
Looking at a lead sheet and identifying chord symbols is useful.
But that's chord identification.
It's not necessarily harmonic analysis.
Fact #5 tells us what we need next:
👉 Harmony has motion.
The chords aren't simply sitting beside one another.
They're going somewhere.
They're relating to one another.
They're moving through:
Circle motion.
Diatonic motion.
Chromatic motion.
So harmonic analysis asks more than:
"What chord is this?"
It asks:
"Where is this chord going?"
That's the shift from identifying information...
To understanding music.
Relationships Make the Tune Smaller
When we stop seeing 32 measures of isolated chord symbols and begin recognizing harmonic relationships...
Something remarkable happens.
👉 The tune gets smaller.
Not physically, of course.
Conceptually.
Instead of seeing:
Chord.
Chord.
Chord.
Chord.
Chord.
We begin seeing:
II–V–I.
III–VI–II–V–I.
Circle motion.
Diatonic motion.
Chromatic motion.
Familiar relationships.
And that's exactly what we want.
Because music must become simple conceptually if we're going to have any chance of developing it physically.
Or, as we say all the time at Jazz Piano Skills:
Simplify it conceptually.
Develop it physically.
Express it musically.
Five Steps for Learning the Harmony of Any Tune
Every harmonic analysis at Jazz Piano Skills follows the same five-step process.
Not because every tune has the same chords.
But because every tune can be studied using the same process.
1. Identify the Standard Key and Form
Before pulling the harmony apart, understand the musical framework holding everything together.
For Our Love Is Here to Stay:
Standard Key: F Major
Form: ABAC
And don't simply recognize the form on paper.
Practice hearing it.
Follow the A section into the B section.
Hear the return of A.
Recognize the C section.
Because when you're performing...
You need to track form just as confidently as you track time.
2. Identify the Unique Chord Changes
A 32-measure lead sheet can look intimidating.
But how many different chords are actually there?
For this tune:
👉 Fourteen unique chord changes.
Suddenly...
Thirty-two measures don't look quite so overwhelming.
And those fourteen chords become individual musical environments where we can practice:
Voicings.
Arpeggios.
Scales.
Improvisation.
Everything we're going to develop throughout the month.
3. Understand Harmonic Function
Here's a skill I want you to develop every time you study harmony:
👉 See changes. Think function.
👉 See function. Think changes.
If you see:
G Minor 7 → C7 → F Major 7
Don't process three unrelated chord symbols.
Think:
II → V → I
And when you see:
II → V → I
You should eventually be able to translate that function into actual chord changes in any key.
Now you're no longer memorizing harmony.
👉 You're learning to think harmonically.
4. Recognize Common Harmonic Motion
This is where the tune gets even smaller.
Inside Our Love Is Here to Stay, we find progressions we've encountered again and again:
II Dominant → II Minor → V → I
III → VI → II → V → I
I → IV7 → III → VI
II → V → I
And even:
♯IVø → VII7 → III → VI → II → V → I
Different tune.
Familiar movement.
And that's precisely the point.
The more relationships you recognize...
👉 The less new information you have to memorize.
5. Develop the Harmony Physically
Only after we've organized the harmony conceptually do we take it to our hands.
This week, we explored:
Traditional block voicings and inversions.
Traditional shell voicings.
Contemporary shell voicings.
Two-handed structures.
Notice the sequence.
We don't begin with:
"Here's a cool voicing."
We begin with:
Key.
Form.
Unique chords.
Function.
Motion.
Then voicings.
Why?
Because...
👉 Understanding should lead physical development.
That's education.
You're Learning Two Things at the Same Time
Whenever you're studying a jazz standard...
You're actually learning two things.
You're learning the tune.
And you're learning music.
Those aren't necessarily the same thing.
If I memorize the chord progression to Our Love Is Here to Stay...
I've learned the chord progression to Our Love Is Here to Stay.
Great.
But if I learn to recognize the harmonic relationships inside the tune...
I've developed musical understanding that I can take to:
All the Things You Are.
Autumn Leaves.
Satin Doll.
The next tune.
And the tune after that.
One gives you something you can play today.
👉 The other gives you something you can use for the rest of your musical life.
Content Can Give You Answers. Education Should Develop Your Ability to Find Them.
This brings us back to our bigger question.
How do we actually learn jazz?
We live in a world overflowing with musical content.
Transcriptions.
Licks.
Voicings.
Exercises.
Videos.
Courses.
Solos.
Ideas.
Answers everywhere.
But collecting answers isn't necessarily the same thing as developing the ability to produce answers.
That's where education has a different responsibility.
Content can give you something interesting to consume.
👉 Education should develop something within you that you're eventually able to use.
Content can show you an answer.
👉 Education should help you understand how answers are produced.
And perhaps most importantly:
Content can show you what somebody else discovered.
👉 Education should develop your ability to discover.
Consistency Isn't Repeating the Same Lesson
There's another important idea here.
Month after month, we seem to keep doing the same things.
Key.
Form.
Function.
Motion.
Voicings.
Harmony.
Melody.
Improvisation.
Solo piano.
Why?
Because:
Consistency isn't repeating the same lesson.
👉 Consistency is revealing the same truth through different lessons.
Different tunes give us different musical environments.
But underneath them...
The same fundamental musical relationships keep appearing.
And the more frequently you recognize those relationships...
The less frequently you have to start over.
Eventually, the Teacher Has to Disappear
This may be the most important educational objective of all.
At first...
I point out the harmonic motion.
Eventually...
You see it.
At first...
I identify the function.
Eventually...
You recognize it.
At first...
I show you how to practice the voicing.
Eventually...
You know how to practice it.
At first...
I help you determine what should come next.
Eventually...
👉 You already know.
That's education.
The objective isn't to make you dependent upon another lesson.
It's to develop enough understanding that eventually...
You know what to do next.
Your Practice Challenge
This week, take the harmony of Our Love Is Here to Stay and resist the temptation to simply memorize the lead sheet.
Instead...
Start with the form.
ABAC.
Identify the fourteen unique chord changes.
Then practice moving mentally between:
Changes → Function
and
Function → Changes
Find the familiar harmonic movements.
Pull them out of the tune.
Play them independently.
Hear them.
Then begin expressing that understanding physically with whichever voicing approach you're currently developing.
Block voicings?
Great.
Stay there.
Shells?
Fantastic.
Two-handed structures?
Go for it.
The objective isn't to rush toward the most sophisticated voicing.
The objective is to understand what you're playing...
And develop it physically.
Final Thought
This week, we began studying Our Love Is Here to Stay.
But perhaps more importantly...
We began studying how we learn.
We discovered that learning harmony is not simply memorizing chords.
We discovered that studying the masters is not simply collecting their phrases.
We discovered that learning a tune and learning music are not necessarily the same thing.
And we discovered that great education shouldn't simply provide more and more answers.
It should gradually develop your ability to find them.
So yes...
Listen to Oscar.
Listen to Chick.
Listen to Keith.
Listen to Bill.
Listen to Bud.
Listen to Herbie.
Study them.
Sing with them.
Analyze them.
Transcribe them.
Learn from them.
But remember what they are ultimately showing you:
👉 Possibility.
They developed enough musical understanding, physical command, and creative freedom to make musical decisions that sounded unmistakably like them.
And eventually...
That's what we're working toward for you.
Not simply:
I know jazz.
Not simply:
I know some jazz tunes.
Not simply:
I know some jazz vocabulary.
But...
👉 I can make music.
And someday...
I can make music that sounds like me.
That's a musical journey worth taking.
This month, Our Love Is Here to Stay is our laboratory.
Harmony comes first.
Next week...
Melody.
And another question:
👉 Is imitation the same as understanding?
I think we're going to have some fun with that one.
Discover • Learn • Play.
🎧 Listen Now: Jazz Piano Skills Podcast: Our Love Is Here to Stay, Harmonic Analysis Become a Member: Jazz Piano Skills
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Warm Regards, Dr. Bob Lawrence
Jazz Piano Skills
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