Hi all,

I´m working on a jazz waltz and have concerns about a chord progression. The melody line is logical but I may have crossed the line for what is harmonically acceptable in this context.
I would appreciate if you could listen to the chords at the second melody phrase (at 0.08 thru 0.11) and tell me what you think

Jazz waltz sample

Thanks

If you take out the drums I think it's fine as it is...

I didn't listen to anything 'abnormal' in any way. So carry on and spicy it up a bit!

Ok, thanks. No drums on the recording but a bouncy bass from my Casio keyboard became excessive when converting the file to mp3
File removed

Pity you've removed it. But, whatever the progression was (can you notate it for us , or give it as chord names?) it will stand or fall on the voice leading - how individual notes from one chord move to form the next. And, if this is a Casio with auto-accompaniment, I'm afraid you may have little control over that :-(

Do tell us what the chords were, though. Maybe you came up with something new and interesting. Please share!

I downloaded a 30 day trial version of Sibelius yesterday and made a recording of my sketch right into the computer. It worked out quite well, although the score looked cluttered. I have a very limited knowledge about reading music from scores and did not even know what key signature to use.
Furthermore something went wrong when I uploaded the pdf file so the score is hardly readable.
Score
Does anyone have an idea on how to solve this uploading problem?

And oh, heres a short soundfile again.
Jazz waltz sketch

Well, it may seem odd to some, but only if they don't like jazz progressions and voicings. To me, it was thoroughly natural, with no sense of "wrongness". IMO, you have a great ear for jazz, even if you don't read music.

Hi Rune,

Sibelius made hash of your rhythmic and harmonic schemes. In general Waltz's are in 3/4. Making all the 8th notes into quarter notes would accomplish this nicely and reduce the harmonic shifts within each bar (but double the number of bars). Given the slow tempo this would also make sense.

As for key signature, that really depends on where it goes from here. The first bar had me thinking flat side, but by bar 5 it seems like D major feels like home. So it's up to you, but know this whatever you pick for key this modest few bars of music (and probably whatever follows) will present a forest of accidentals. That's okay because the progression is harmonically rich. So let's leave it at we want more!

the dreaded double post! oops!

Tim and Nicolas,

Thanks a lot for your comments. Odd but not wrong sounds good in my ears :-)

And Steve, thank you for the theory lesson. I will try changing the time signature right away. Then I´ll go on with the piece and see whether I can find back to the original key at the end..
I often get lost among all inviting progressions

My Jazz Waltz project score looks a lot better in 3/4. Thanks again for the tutoring. I have always thought a jazz waltz should be written in 6/8.
Great fun to play around in Sibelius! I learn a lot about writing scores and I am thinking of keeping he program. Quite expensive though :-o

Here´s my latest attempt. Manually written this time:
JW score
A different host solved the earlier uploading problems