Body And Soul Chord Comparison
So I decided to try an experiment. My mentor had some cool ideas about the chords to this song, but I couldn't figure out what sounded right. I decided to record the song playing what I would play first, then something closer to what he would play. The chords are used are basically what is in fake books, but I combined a few sources and Bob Broman's version to come up with mine.
I learned a few things:
1) In jazz it IS important to play the notes high on the guitar. This should be thought of as transposing up an octave, though in reality you are playing the concert pitch for most notation.
2) Jazz musicians use the diminished chord to connect things that are a whole tone a part often. It seems that about half the time this requires a chord that cause a major seventh or diminished second between the melody and the harmony. The major seventh is preferred, which is why I made my first point. I find that because the diminished chord is usually happening during a substitution for the tonic, the dissonance is too high to be tenable or convincing. It doesn't serve to create logical dissonance, and sounds wrong. Usually a diminished chord a semi-tone away from the indicated one will work, because of this, though it is not really an accurate notation of the harmonic structure. I find that this is true in two sleepy people. In this song, however, it at the end of the 4th measure. My mentors chord in that spot is preferred. In the attached score link, his harmony is the upper one indicated in red, and mine is the one printed in larger font below. In other words, you can evade some the issues with the passing chords by playing in a higher register, creating wider intervals.
3) In more modern songs my mentors approach sounds nicer. Arpeggiating the chord or only selecting a few notes from the fingered shape can also create space for the soloist.
My playing isn't great on this. I only put it in this key today, and I wasn't worried about perfecting the song, I really just wanted to decide which chords are best, and though I would share the results.
Link to score:
https://musescore.com/user/7202336/sc...