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Found this intense study of Infant Eyes
Hope it helps with your harmony/theory studies
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02-26-2026 03:05 PM
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What a coincidence, I was just working up a chord melody of this tune, thanks.
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From Dave's recent album:
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The beauty in this tune is palatable.
Originally Posted by Mick-7
To me it has flavors of Blue in Green and Good bye Pork Pie Hat,
Hancocks work on this is gold.
Let me know your take on it
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You may not want my take because I don't do chord melody, I do notes against a backing. But if I did do a chord melody I wouldn't do it rubato, to me that's a get-out. The tune has a pulse to it. Originally Posted by wolflen
Then you need a chart with the right chords on it. There are charts with fairly simple chords, just majors, minors and 7's, etc, but a good one will have 13b9's (not just 7b9), sus chords (not just 7's), and slash chords. One has to know to get round those type of chords, sus chords especially.
The other thing is the odd number of bars to each section, 9 instead of 8.
Here's one:
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All the altered chord tones are in the melody so don't really need to be spelled out - b9th, #11th & b13th. The V7sus chords could have been named IIm7/11 chords since F9sus = Cm11, Bb9sus = Fm11, etc. They're all called 9sus chords in the Jazz Fake Book (rather odd). I'm gonna have to check out the recording because I'm not sure that some of the sheet music chords are correct. Originally Posted by ragman1
I found this useful:
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Quite honestly, I just grab the first chart that looks kosher, work out what I'm going to play over it, which isn't difficult, and play it. I tend not to analyse or look into it too much unless I'm having a real problem with it. Naima was tricky but this one wasn't, basically.
Mind you, I'm only doing notes, not chord melody. That would be trickier.
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Harmony is key with this tune and it calls for colorful chord voicings - lots of 2nds and 4ths. Originally Posted by ragman1
Chords like these: F#m7 | x-4-4-2-0-0 | >Em11 | x-2-2-2-3-3 | > D^7#11 | x-0-4-1-2-0 |
Most of the intro this pianist transcribed appears to be playable on the guitar, I say "appears to be" because his notation is practically illegible and some of the accidentals are unclear. He said he thinks that a couple of the Major 7th chords are actually minor 7th chords, e.g., the Emaj7/D# is a C#m6/9, which makes sense, the melody over it is C# to A#.
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“Shortarian Harmony”
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People get bent out of shape about Wayne’s chords, but they arise pretty logically from the relationship between the bass and melody.
Now how he comes up with the bass and melody… that’s the mystery to me haha. But there are certain things he likes that crop up in other tunes.
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkLast edited by Christian Miller; 03-01-2026 at 08:52 AM.
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Duplicate
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and from the jazz piano book by Mark Levine
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That's simpler, hadn't seen it, thanks. Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
from the jazz piano book by Mark Levine
He has a "phrygian" chord in bar 11, thought the Jazz Fake book chord (= E^7/D#) in that bar was off, all the others chords are similar.
So, either this: Ebm7b9sus | x-6-8-9-9-9 | - or what I had: E^13#11 | x-7-8-8-9-9 |Last edited by Mick-7; 03-01-2026 at 09:07 PM.
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Quick take on my telecaster, I've attached a pdf of the chords I played (I reposted this, corrected a couple of errors).
Infant Eyes chord melody (still in it's infancy)
P.S. - By the way, the top note of the chord below is played with the side of the index finger [x-1-3-2-4-(1)]:
D^7#11 || x-5-7-6-7-4 |
However, in this position, Lydia insists that I use open strings >> || x-0-0-6-7-4 |
Last edited by Mick-7; 03-02-2026 at 04:40 PM.
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Dysfunctional Harmony. I like yours better but I heard Dysfunctional from a teacher years ago. At any rate, he's not like all the others. I wonder if Metheny is a big fan of Wayne? The connection being, Pat wanted different chord changes to improvise over so he wrote almost an entire new genre of music, hundreds of tunes for himself to have material to express what he wanted to say. Originally Posted by Aiq
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Of all my favourite terms that sounds like they mean something, but actually don't, 'non-functional harmony' is my favourite. It's basically a way of saying 'dunno' while sounding that you know what you are talking about.
'Functional harmony" otoh what it means to most jazz musicians - here is a pattern I recognise. II V I is the most obvious one. Cycle of fifths, etc. It's a fancy way of saying 'oh I've seen this before' (and practiced it to DEATH usually.)
So I don't take the distinction between functional and non-functional harmony very seriously. I think it's jargon.
What's important? Well until the post bop era most composers operated with the same basic set of building blocks. After the post bop era it's not necessarily the case. So the set of things you are likely to come across is more specific to this or that composer. The Coltrane Cycle is an obvious one.
So if you learn enough Wayne tunes you are going to see some stuff that crops up in different tunes, and composers influenced by him. One that pops up a lot (though not in this one) is a -7 or 7#9 chord followed by a maj7 a half step higher, usually with some minor pentatonic melody over the top.
Another thing is a modal interchange over a static bass note. So here we have the Eb^7 to E/Eb move. Not that 'out there' but not obviously something you come across that much in the bop repertoire. But it is something you will see in other post-bop tunes - such as Beatrice - and may derive from Green Dolphin Street possibly. I like to play a turnaround like this on standard tunes. I think other people do that sometimes... Lage Lund maybe?
And then there's some moves that are characteristic of that tune. Without going through the whole thing, that change A13b9 to Gb is intriguing. It's like the upper structure of the A13b9 chord (Gb) becomes the next chord. But those upper structure notes are found in the melody.
So I might even say that is - you know - non functional. I can't think of another tune that does that with that chord off the top of my head.
TBF you get that in some standards. One that comes to mind right way is one of the oldest - Limehouse Blues, that has the intriguing movement from Db7#11, to Bb7. and then to Ab. But it's obviously far from the only one. Jobim is classic for this of course, people even call his music non functional sometimes.
But so much of it hangs of the melody. Limehouse, Jobim and Wayne actually haha. People always seem to overlook the melody and the bass movement when discussing this stuff. The way Wayne will write a serious of steps followed by an unexpected leap for instance - or the way so many of his tunes use an interesting relationship between a simple folk like pentatonic melody and unexpected counterpoint form the bass. Look at the use of motives in the Infant Eyes melody.
Wayne was a horn player of course, but people seem to take their cues when examining his music from the piano.
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It is certainly functional though so I'd call it something else.... maybe transfunctional or polyfunctional harmony.
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I mean, why not? Originally Posted by Mick-7
Still got to practice it whatever name you give it.
Actually this is the sort of thing where the Stefon Harris approach is really powerful. In a way with that approach everything is sort of equally non functional.
(But then in a way jazz was never functional itself.)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Dysfunctional Harmony
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I've been wanting to learn this one for a while. The posts of the Mark Levine chart and the Modern Jazz Piano College video were very helpful for me so thanks to Mick-7 and 2bornot2bop for those. Here's a a chord melody version I came up with based on them.
Stream InfantEyes by Dlfowler | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
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That was interesting, thanks :-)
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This is a chord melody I made a while ago. Listening to it today, I don't like it very much, but it is what it is.
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That is good but your rhythm is too straight, Wayne plays it with a languid feel and Herbie's accompaniment is calm and yet somewhat erratic. Originally Posted by swampguide
There's a guy on YouTube who played it with a plodding 4/4 rhythm and it sounded like a death march - just dreadful, he should have renamed it infant death! I'm certainly not comparing your rhythmic feel to that monstrosity, only saying that the rhythm of this tune is essential to it's mood, it accents the suspenseful harmony.
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Some really nice ideas there.... it's a difficult tune to play well. Originally Posted by cesarguit
I often have the same reaction when I listen to my old chord melodies, but the more I play and explore a tune, the better my rendition of it usually gets, as I come to better understand and mine its harmonic structure. My first takes of a tune, especially if it has uncommon chord changes such as this one, sometimes make me cringe.
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