Harmonic analysis of Dolphin Dance

[fdeck]

Yep, probably best to just trust your ear and make the best of it..

Overthinking Jazz tunes can be folly in some cases. I remember an associate who worked on very high level Scholarship, contributing to Grove's etc. Doing a very complicated analysis of Thelonious Monk's solo's. In one, he went to great lengths to explain Monk's suddenly stopping in the middle of a phrase and coming in only after three measures of silence. He poured all kinds of ideas about how monk was trying to shape the listener's ears to hear the changes differently etc. ad nauseum. Years later I saw a video of Monk doing that recording, my being unaware it had been filmed. At the moment of that break, Monk looks up form the piano, sees his cigar and decides to take a drag, and then another. He simply saw his cigar and wanted to smoke, finished that and went back to playing. I couldn't stop laughing after seeing that.

It is possible to overthink things sometimes.

A perfect reminder of the Sigmund Freud quote: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

 

[Ed Fuqua]

Yep, probably best to just trust your ear and make the best of it..

Overthinking Jazz tunes can be folly in some cases. I remember an associate who worked on very high level Scholarship, contributing to Grove's etc. Doing a very complicated analysis of Thelonious Monk's solo's. In one, he went to great lengths to explain Monk's suddenly stopping in the middle of a phrase and coming in only after three measures of silence. He poured all kinds of ideas about how monk was trying to shape the listener's ears to hear the changes differently etc. ad nauseum. Years later I saw a video of Monk doing that recording, my being unaware it had been filmed. At the moment of that break, Monk looks up form the piano, sees his cigar and decides to take a drag, and then another. He simply saw his cigar and wanted to smoke, finished that and went back to playing. I couldn't stop laughing after seeing that.

It is possible to overthink things sometimes.

This is just odd, in all my Harmony classes at Berklee functional analysis never included trying to explain phrasing, rests, etc. You look at how the melodic line relates (or doesn't relate) to the harmony of the moment. Psychological analysis doesn't have anything to do with musical analysis. You analyze music to find out WHAT Hank Mobley was doing, not WHY he was doing it. That's just ********.

 

[thmsjordan]

This is just odd, in all my Harmony classes at Berklee functional analysis never included trying to explain phrasing, rests, etc. You look at how the melodic line relates (or doesn't relate) to the harmony of the moment. Psychological analysis doesn't have anything to do with musical analysis. You analyze music to find out WHAT Hank Mobley was doing, not WHY he was doing it. That's just ********.

I could not agree more and your experience matches my own. All I can say is that the individual involved here was a major person in the development of a 'major' dictionary of Jazz and was really full of himself. It was nice to see the folly of his theory after years of having to listen to the guy.

 

[Whousedtoplay]

In Measure 6, Freddie Hubbard plays the note, C but no transcription on the Internet indicates it.

 

[Whousedtoplay]

Can anyone point me to a harmonic analysis of Dolphin Dance by Herbie Hancock? I am seriously scratching my head. Chart attached. Thanks!

View attachment 4731342

Just make sure about that Ab7(b5) chord in M6.
There is no Dom7 chord.
What's more, only the bass says, "It's Ab."
The chord voicings are slightly different - (up) G C F G Bb D.

The same thing about the very first chord.
While there is Eb in the bass, the chord voicings are: C F G Bb D, like C11 (omit 3.)

 

[Bob_Ross]

in all my Harmony classes at Berklee functional analysis never included trying to explain phrasing, rests, etc.

Probably a topic for a separate thread, but fwiw ^^^that could arguably be a shortcoming of Berklee's approach to "functional analysis"
...and I say that as a Berklee graduate*
tbh it could also be a shortcoming of anybody's "functional analysis" ...or of harmonic analysis in general when taken as some separate, standalone information [sic] about the composer's or performer's intention.

*Actually, this observation seems germane: in all my Harmony classes as an undergrad at Berklee functional analysis never included trying to explain phrasing either. But in my Harmony classes as a grad student at the New England Conservatory, phrasing was considered a part of the dissection: Harmonic rhythm, and the temporal placement of chordal cadences (where resolutions, or movements between chords or tonal centers, landed) was an important part of the examination.
Make what you will of that

 

[Groove Master]

Can anyone point me to a harmonic analysis of Dolphin Dance by Herbie Hancock? I am seriously scratching my head. Chart attached. Thanks!

View attachment 4731342

A lot of functional harmony here mainly in C minor. The melody is also voiced with a lot of 13 and 11 missing in the symbols. So there are a lot of extensions on chords. Also try to find the triads that fit over the pedal points like in the first 2 bars it is a Major7 chord going on a suspended 7th. So there is only one note moving from the Eb Major scale. You have the chord tones D and G going to Db and aim for Ab which is already there in the scale.So you have a Eb major scale becoming a mixolydian scale with a focus on the fourth instead of the third. You can play some G minor or Bb major triad then F minor or Bb minor etc. So by looking at a Bb triad going on a Bb minor triad helps you get musical ideas that sound great. Like on the F pedal on a chord like F7(b9) which is actually a F13(b9) it is interesting to view the chord as D triad over a F7.

So this is the kind of stuff you can come up with if you sit at the piano and play those chords and discover all the little chords there is in them. The trick I like to do is to come up with simpler triads or common tones in a harmonic phrase that simplify how you can see and hear things.

This is actually a great tune to do this,

Good luck and let us know what you came up with ;-)