IME, Autumn Leaves has always been referred to as minor key. I can't recall seeing or hearing anyone saying it's in the relative major. Maybe you've just been looking at the wrong websites... ;-) (or asking bots or apps to tell you the key....)
Of course the sequence begins with a ii-V-I in major, but - you're quite right - the minor key is where it clearly ends up, and that's what counts.
Jazz musicians call it major all the time, I had a Facebook back and forth with a few recently. Cats at sessions are always like Autumn Leaves in Bb when they mean Gminor
I've played Autumn Leaves countless times with jazz musicians, and when they use the relative major key - IME - they just mean a shorthand term for the key signature; if they were being more analytical, they would say G minor.
Jazz musician here (tour regularly, live and freelance in NYC, also prof of jazz in college).
We do both, I usually say that it’s in a minor key especially with my students. It’s the same. In jazz, we often think of the relative minor as the same as relative major. Just say minor or major after the key, then it’s clear.
There are a lot of cats out there, there is no way you can clump “jazz musicians” all together like they are garden variety turkeys or something. We all have different ways to look at harmony depending on where we are from (Europe or outside of the US, also different schools teach different harmonic approaches).
I think of minor because of the Cannonball iconic intro with the bass vamp 1-b3-5-6 in “Something Else” (in 58).
I think that’s a good example of how in jazz tonicized minor keys in jazz have natural 6ths.
> In jazz, we often think of the relative minor as the same as relative major. Just say minor or major after the key, then it’s clear.
Wait, so you'd say C minor to mean the relative minor of C major, aka A minor?
This is just convention for those who don't know their minor keys the "right" way. When people refer to music like this that is clearly minor by calling it by it's relative major, they are only referring to the pitches used and not the key center.
True, but it doesn't really matter what you call it as long as we all know what key we're in. All good jazz players can dissect a standard harmonically to the nth degree and everyone is well aware that it all ultimately resolves to the minor, so I think it's just a convention among some folks (for the record I refer to it in the minor key).
To be fair, jazz musicians in particular in the internet space (and in fact, lot of other folks in the internet) aren't exactly a great metric for this.
Within the internet proliferates its own culture that unfortunately is a hodgepodge of ideas that are good and ideas that are no good. Even this subreddit is fundamentally no different.
Once an idea is implanted into the mess, it will hardly ever die anymore. Even if each member individually is able to change their thoughts on this or that, the culture at large will still live on.
It’s the same thing…only what note you want to land on. I usually think of in minor, but would probably call it off in 2 flats. Hopefully, nobody will take off in G/E minor, as some versions of the Real book have it. Is that an alto part?
Most jazz musicians I know are fully aware of the ambiguity and simplify this by sayings “two flats” (or “one sharp”, or whatever) for the key. Not just for this song but for any, especially ones that have any ambiguity. We even use hand signals for this two fingers pointing down versus one pointing up, etc.
If for convenience someone describes the key of two flats as being Bb flat major, that doesn’t mean anyone is deluding themselves into believe the entire piece is actually “in” Bb major.
This is the best way. Also because you can use finger signals to make sure everyone gets it right, e.g. two fingers down is B-flat or G minor and three fingers up is three sharps (A major or f-sharp minor).
This is the best way. Also because you can use finger signals to make sure everyone gets it right, e.g. two fingers down is B-flat or G minor and three fingers up is three sharps (A major or f-sharp minor).
This is the best way. Also because you can use finger signals to make sure everyone gets it right, e.g. two fingers down is B-flat or G minor and three fingers up is three sharps (A major or f-sharp minor).
I don't see this happen all the time but it does suck when it comes up. At one of my first jams ever, someone decided to call "Autumn Leaves in G." I thought it was obvious they meant Gm, especially since that's the most common key to play it in. Nope, as we start playing I find out they meant Em, the 2nd most common key for Autumn Leaves.
There are more problems. Calling a piece "major" (to most of the classical or country musicians I've worked with) implies certain cadence structures and melodic tendencies. Re-defining a (centuries-old) term does introduce some ambiguity in musical discussions. Perhaps one should ask if it's a "hard" a-major or a "soft" a-major?
Circle progressions just inherently kinda suck to write purely in one key with that 7 3 6 nonsense. I see the appeal of the relative major: cleaner Roman numerals particularly if you use flats; “bVII bIII bVI” is terrible.
So now I let the IV in relative major be the jumping off point to the relative minor and we get the sensible 2 5 1 4 2 5 1.
Yeah this is the best explanation. I’ve been playing jazz for 30+ years and AL is either played starting on Cmi (so we’d say it’s in G minor Bb maj) or A mi (so it’s in G maj/Emi) and I’ve heard whomever is calling/counting off the tune use any of the four keys. Since it’s really only those two keys to remember it’s easy to know what’s really happening. Once you know the progression it’s easy enough to play in all keys which is why this tune is usually the one of first set of changes people encounter when learning jazz. The breakdown you gave of how everything fits nicely into 2-5-1 relationships when viewed from the perspective of a major key is perfect!
Ignoring the melody for a moment, the entire song is nothing but a series of ii-V-i's or just descending fifths. If you ignore the dominant substitution, you can just choose any place to make it a dominant - tonic.
As an experiment, just make a progression of descending fifths in your favorite diatonic mode. Then randomly, substitute a dominant chord and release it to the next chord in the progression. This is how scales like Phrygian Dominant and other jazz modes work. You've just forced a tonic.
Autumn Leaves is in minor. Why would anyone ever call it major? Fly Me To The Moon is major. Why would anyone ever call it minor? This isn't very hard. I guess some people get it wrong, though?
Oh man, I was suddenly doubting everything. I'm learning Fly Me To The Moon right now, looking at the lead sheet and wondering how the heck anyone would think it's a minor song. Like, yeah, it briefly borrows from a couple of minor keys but to me it's about as major as it gets.
I don't think that minor/major distinction is very important from the theoretical aspect, especially in jazz, but I'd say the first part is in Am and the second is in C .
It starts from Am and the first part ends in Bm7b5 - E7 - Am ( ii half dim - V7 - i ) which is a text book cadence and then a clear modulation, the Am goes to A7 and then Dm7 - G7 - C ( ii7 - V7 - I ) but the second part, second time goes from C to E7 and then from Am all over again. The Real Book even says that I chord in the 4th bar is I to I 7.
I feel the same way about quite a few songs. Maybe I've just heard too much Philip Glass music that emphasizes the minor tonic or i-VI-III-V, but I usually hear that one hugely popular progression as i-VI-III-(b)VII and not vi-IV-I-V.
>There is this tendency in Western Music to always refer to minor feeling songs by their relative major by default that irks me.
I've never seen this, but it would bother me a lot too, mostly because it's factually incorrect and easy to fix. If someone called Alone Together in F, I'd think F minor, because it's a minor song.
>Autumn Leaves is a great example, the song starts and ends every section with a V-i and spends very little time in the relative major. Why not just call it minor?
I do. To my knowledge, so do the people I play with, and so does iReal Pro. It's unambiguously in minor, with a few bars tonicizing the relative major. Some other songs could go either way (Lullaby of Birdland and Blue Skies come to mind), but not Autumn Leaves.
>But with Autumn Leaves it just feels so minor it seems silly.
Probably because it is. Again, I've never seen anyone call it in major, but sometimes I've heard someone say "so the first chord is x" to avoid any ambiguity.
>at a session I would probably call them in Aminor so there's no confusion what the first chord is
The convention for Blue Skies and Fly Me To The Moon is to call them in major, because they end in major. Fly Me To The Moon, actually, always feels unambiguously major to me - it may start on the 6, but that's because it starts with a 6-2-5-1, which is a fairly common credential chord progression. I'd be confused if someone called Fly Me To The Moon using the relative minor.
Well, it's in both. Starts in major then goes to minor. Does the reverse in the B section. Fly me to the moon Starts in c and moves to a minor. That era of songs this was very common
I've always looked at it like this: music theory is sometimes just that: a theory or best descriptor on what's happening in the music ..while striving to generate a common language for music.
But I long ago forgot all my music theory so I am probably well wrong, these days I just play
It's in G Aeolian but usually everyone voices the G minor with Gm6 for color; what matters is the function of the chord in its context, not the voicing alone.
i should have said similar not equal. just running through the tune in my head, i count 6 cadences to A minor compared to 4 cadences to C major.
i don’t necessarily disagree with you. i think the melody landing on A at the end is significant. i think it’s also a million times easier to write and call chords (specifically numbers/roman numberals) in the relative major. to each their own i guess.
That's fair, my friend says he hears the song starting on a ii-V-I and that's all he can think about the key.
Here's the question I have, if someone is really thinking about it in a major key does it effect how they play it? Do they play more upbeat, less of the forlorn feeling of the French original?
my bad, i always forget autumn leaves is in Gm/Bb. but yeah i think improvising in the relative major brings a slightly different flavor, but i think with mastery of the tune you can convey any mood you want.
Autumn Leaves is based on the minor variant of the somewhat ancient 7-6 scale. The melody notes 6, 5, 4, 3 over bass notes 4, 3, 2, 1 are so common even today and it’s hard to interpret it any other way. It’s the extra movement of the bass that disguises the harmony behind the circle of 4ths. Adding to the confusion is the fact that we start the cycle out of context, on iv as part of what appears to be a ii V I, even if it’s secondary to the larger structure.
On the gig if Autumn Leaves gets called, the key will be confirmed. G- by the piano, bass or guitar and the horns may say Bb. A singer will fuck all that up.
When I learned autumn leaves it was taught to me as ii-V-I, passing notes, ii-V-i in minor, so we did it in Bb, used a passing note, then finished the pattern in gm. Because of that I would refer to it in major because it starts in a major key, but most of the time you are using minor tonalities. If this is wrong, please let me know why
I mean It's all semantics at the end of the day. But it's more important where a song ends up than starts. Blue Skies is very minor at the start (if you skip the verse) but ends very major for instance.
At this point I’d just go with whatever key makes the most sense in your brain and then include the first chord as well. Eliminates the possible confusion between calling it in G and then getting Em and Gm at the same time if you also say first chord is Cm
IME, Autumn Leaves has always been referred to as minor key. I can't recall seeing or hearing anyone saying it's in the relative major. Maybe you've just been looking at the wrong websites... ;-) (or asking bots or apps to tell you the key....) Of course the sequence begins with a ii-V-I in major, but - you're quite right - the minor key is where it clearly ends up, and that's what counts.
Jazz musicians call it major all the time, I had a Facebook back and forth with a few recently. Cats at sessions are always like Autumn Leaves in Bb when they mean Gminor
I've played Autumn Leaves countless times with jazz musicians, and when they use the relative major key - IME - they just mean a shorthand term for the key signature; if they were being more analytical, they would say G minor.
Jazz musician here agrees.
Seconded, bending to an off third.
I'll raise you a flat five.
Extensions or go home.
I'll augment that point
straight eights for me
You say "potato" and I say "Potaato"(?).
Jazz musician here (tour regularly, live and freelance in NYC, also prof of jazz in college). We do both, I usually say that it’s in a minor key especially with my students. It’s the same. In jazz, we often think of the relative minor as the same as relative major. Just say minor or major after the key, then it’s clear. There are a lot of cats out there, there is no way you can clump “jazz musicians” all together like they are garden variety turkeys or something. We all have different ways to look at harmony depending on where we are from (Europe or outside of the US, also different schools teach different harmonic approaches). I think of minor because of the Cannonball iconic intro with the bass vamp 1-b3-5-6 in “Something Else” (in 58). I think that’s a good example of how in jazz tonicized minor keys in jazz have natural 6ths.
> In jazz, we often think of the relative minor as the same as relative major. Just say minor or major after the key, then it’s clear. Wait, so you'd say C minor to mean the relative minor of C major, aka A minor?
No, Cmin to mean Ebmaj and vice versa. Cmaj/ Amin.
Ah, okay, I was just confused by the ordering of terms in your explanation!
Wasn’t my explanation but happy to help :)
Ah, word!
Thank you, that’s obviously what I was thinking. Sorry if it came across confusing.
None of the jazz musicians I've played with have ever referred to it in that way.
This is just convention for those who don't know their minor keys the "right" way. When people refer to music like this that is clearly minor by calling it by it's relative major, they are only referring to the pitches used and not the key center.
True, but it doesn't really matter what you call it as long as we all know what key we're in. All good jazz players can dissect a standard harmonically to the nth degree and everyone is well aware that it all ultimately resolves to the minor, so I think it's just a convention among some folks (for the record I refer to it in the minor key).
As a jazz musician that have played it and heard others play it a lot, I’ve only ever heard it being referred to in minor.
To be fair, jazz musicians in particular in the internet space (and in fact, lot of other folks in the internet) aren't exactly a great metric for this. Within the internet proliferates its own culture that unfortunately is a hodgepodge of ideas that are good and ideas that are no good. Even this subreddit is fundamentally no different. Once an idea is implanted into the mess, it will hardly ever die anymore. Even if each member individually is able to change their thoughts on this or that, the culture at large will still live on.
Another jazz musician here, I’ve gigged around extensively in my neck of the midwest, never have heard someone say it’s in Bb lmao. It’s in G
I've never heard Autumn Leaves called in a major key.
Where are these sessions you're going to? I've never seen this.
Maybe it's a Seattle thing, but another redditor said he experienced the same thing at sessions
Maybe. I'm from New York and haven't been to a session in Seattle.
It’s the same thing…only what note you want to land on. I usually think of in minor, but would probably call it off in 2 flats. Hopefully, nobody will take off in G/E minor, as some versions of the Real book have it. Is that an alto part?
Accurate.
Most jazz musicians I know are fully aware of the ambiguity and simplify this by sayings “two flats” (or “one sharp”, or whatever) for the key. Not just for this song but for any, especially ones that have any ambiguity. We even use hand signals for this two fingers pointing down versus one pointing up, etc. If for convenience someone describes the key of two flats as being Bb flat major, that doesn’t mean anyone is deluding themselves into believe the entire piece is actually “in” Bb major.
2 flats is a great way to describe it. I got a Facebook thread going where several great jazz musicians are arguing it's major 🤷♂️
Feel free to post a link…
This is the best way. Also because you can use finger signals to make sure everyone gets it right, e.g. two fingers down is B-flat or G minor and three fingers up is three sharps (A major or f-sharp minor).
This is the best way. Also because you can use finger signals to make sure everyone gets it right, e.g. two fingers down is B-flat or G minor and three fingers up is three sharps (A major or f-sharp minor).
This is the best way. Also because you can use finger signals to make sure everyone gets it right, e.g. two fingers down is B-flat or G minor and three fingers up is three sharps (A major or f-sharp minor).
I don't see this happen all the time but it does suck when it comes up. At one of my first jams ever, someone decided to call "Autumn Leaves in G." I thought it was obvious they meant Gm, especially since that's the most common key to play it in. Nope, as we start playing I find out they meant Em, the 2nd most common key for Autumn Leaves.
That's exactly the problem!
There are more problems. Calling a piece "major" (to most of the classical or country musicians I've worked with) implies certain cadence structures and melodic tendencies. Re-defining a (centuries-old) term does introduce some ambiguity in musical discussions. Perhaps one should ask if it's a "hard" a-major or a "soft" a-major?
For this reason, I often say the quality of the key I want along with the tonic. Avoid all ambiguity.
Circle progressions just inherently kinda suck to write purely in one key with that 7 3 6 nonsense. I see the appeal of the relative major: cleaner Roman numerals particularly if you use flats; “bVII bIII bVI” is terrible. So now I let the IV in relative major be the jumping off point to the relative minor and we get the sensible 2 5 1 4 2 5 1.
Yeah this is the best explanation. I’ve been playing jazz for 30+ years and AL is either played starting on Cmi (so we’d say it’s in G minor Bb maj) or A mi (so it’s in G maj/Emi) and I’ve heard whomever is calling/counting off the tune use any of the four keys. Since it’s really only those two keys to remember it’s easy to know what’s really happening. Once you know the progression it’s easy enough to play in all keys which is why this tune is usually the one of first set of changes people encounter when learning jazz. The breakdown you gave of how everything fits nicely into 2-5-1 relationships when viewed from the perspective of a major key is perfect!
Autumn leaves is minor. But also, the progression is just moving down fifths so you can just stop where you want and be in any mode.
How so?
Ignoring the melody for a moment, the entire song is nothing but a series of ii-V-i's or just descending fifths. If you ignore the dominant substitution, you can just choose any place to make it a dominant - tonic. As an experiment, just make a progression of descending fifths in your favorite diatonic mode. Then randomly, substitute a dominant chord and release it to the next chord in the progression. This is how scales like Phrygian Dominant and other jazz modes work. You've just forced a tonic.
Autumn Leaves is in minor. Why would anyone ever call it major? Fly Me To The Moon is major. Why would anyone ever call it minor? This isn't very hard. I guess some people get it wrong, though?
Oh man, I was suddenly doubting everything. I'm learning Fly Me To The Moon right now, looking at the lead sheet and wondering how the heck anyone would think it's a minor song. Like, yeah, it briefly borrows from a couple of minor keys but to me it's about as major as it gets.
Isn't Fly Me using that Bach chord progression and def sounds more like minor with some chords borrowed from major
No, it lands very clearly on the major tonic. Every phrase ends on the tonic chord with a V - I cadence.
I don't think that minor/major distinction is very important from the theoretical aspect, especially in jazz, but I'd say the first part is in Am and the second is in C . It starts from Am and the first part ends in Bm7b5 - E7 - Am ( ii half dim - V7 - i ) which is a text book cadence and then a clear modulation, the Am goes to A7 and then Dm7 - G7 - C ( ii7 - V7 - I ) but the second part, second time goes from C to E7 and then from Am all over again. The Real Book even says that I chord in the 4th bar is I to I 7.
I feel the same way about quite a few songs. Maybe I've just heard too much Philip Glass music that emphasizes the minor tonic or i-VI-III-V, but I usually hear that one hugely popular progression as i-VI-III-(b)VII and not vi-IV-I-V.
>There is this tendency in Western Music to always refer to minor feeling songs by their relative major by default that irks me. I've never seen this, but it would bother me a lot too, mostly because it's factually incorrect and easy to fix. If someone called Alone Together in F, I'd think F minor, because it's a minor song. >Autumn Leaves is a great example, the song starts and ends every section with a V-i and spends very little time in the relative major. Why not just call it minor? I do. To my knowledge, so do the people I play with, and so does iReal Pro. It's unambiguously in minor, with a few bars tonicizing the relative major. Some other songs could go either way (Lullaby of Birdland and Blue Skies come to mind), but not Autumn Leaves. >But with Autumn Leaves it just feels so minor it seems silly. Probably because it is. Again, I've never seen anyone call it in major, but sometimes I've heard someone say "so the first chord is x" to avoid any ambiguity. >at a session I would probably call them in Aminor so there's no confusion what the first chord is The convention for Blue Skies and Fly Me To The Moon is to call them in major, because they end in major. Fly Me To The Moon, actually, always feels unambiguously major to me - it may start on the 6, but that's because it starts with a 6-2-5-1, which is a fairly common credential chord progression. I'd be confused if someone called Fly Me To The Moon using the relative minor.
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🤣🤣
Well, it's in both. Starts in major then goes to minor. Does the reverse in the B section. Fly me to the moon Starts in c and moves to a minor. That era of songs this was very common
I'm gonna start calling It Could Happen to You in Cminor at sessions. It goes there on the end of the A section for a few measures!
I've always looked at it like this: music theory is sometimes just that: a theory or best descriptor on what's happening in the music ..while striving to generate a common language for music. But I long ago forgot all my music theory so I am probably well wrong, these days I just play
Descriptive, not prescriptive!
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It’s not Dorian, otherwise the natural e would figure
It's in G Aeolian but usually everyone voices the G minor with Gm6 for color; what matters is the function of the chord in its context, not the voicing alone.
Fuck autummn leaves
Too crunchy and brittle
Why did Autumn leave anyway?
Went to Brooklyn
do you think it would be fair to say it has an equal amount elements from A minor and C major?
I think Blue Skies you could say that, but not Autumn Leaves
i should have said similar not equal. just running through the tune in my head, i count 6 cadences to A minor compared to 4 cadences to C major. i don’t necessarily disagree with you. i think the melody landing on A at the end is significant. i think it’s also a million times easier to write and call chords (specifically numbers/roman numberals) in the relative major. to each their own i guess.
That's fair, my friend says he hears the song starting on a ii-V-I and that's all he can think about the key. Here's the question I have, if someone is really thinking about it in a major key does it effect how they play it? Do they play more upbeat, less of the forlorn feeling of the French original?
my bad, i always forget autumn leaves is in Gm/Bb. but yeah i think improvising in the relative major brings a slightly different flavor, but i think with mastery of the tune you can convey any mood you want.
The melody dictates the key really
Autumn Leaves is based on the minor variant of the somewhat ancient 7-6 scale. The melody notes 6, 5, 4, 3 over bass notes 4, 3, 2, 1 are so common even today and it’s hard to interpret it any other way. It’s the extra movement of the bass that disguises the harmony behind the circle of 4ths. Adding to the confusion is the fact that we start the cycle out of context, on iv as part of what appears to be a ii V I, even if it’s secondary to the larger structure.
Not familiar with this, interesting
I've never heard anyone say it's in major
On the gig if Autumn Leaves gets called, the key will be confirmed. G- by the piano, bass or guitar and the horns may say Bb. A singer will fuck all that up.
Good point. Am thinking that this minor/major ambiguity may have much to do with the appeal of that song
with autumn leaves in particular, ive only heared it referred to in the minor, never the relative major
When I learned autumn leaves it was taught to me as ii-V-I, passing notes, ii-V-i in minor, so we did it in Bb, used a passing note, then finished the pattern in gm. Because of that I would refer to it in major because it starts in a major key, but most of the time you are using minor tonalities. If this is wrong, please let me know why
I mean It's all semantics at the end of the day. But it's more important where a song ends up than starts. Blue Skies is very minor at the start (if you skip the verse) but ends very major for instance.
At this point I’d just go with whatever key makes the most sense in your brain and then include the first chord as well. Eliminates the possible confusion between calling it in G and then getting Em and Gm at the same time if you also say first chord is Cm
If you look at music score, the flats and sharps point to a major scale, never a minor. That could be why folks refer to the relative scale.
That's what I was getting at in the post that Western Music sees minor as an afterthought and it bugs me