Ave Maria by Charles Gounod & J. S. Bach

Overview

Key: E♭ major · Chords used: 27 · Sections: 4

Form: A Section → B Section → C Section → D Section

Where these chords come from: a lead sheet of this public-domain song, contributed by a musician to the Wikifonia archive and preserved in the OpenEWLD lead-sheet collection (Simonetta et al., 2018). It describes the song as written, not any particular recording. This page shows that lead sheet as-is: the analysis below is generated directly from it by code, not written by AI. Consecutive repeats of a chord are shown once, and the piano voicings are our playable arrangement of each chord symbol, not a note-for-note transcription.

Section by section

A Section

• E♭ – Fm/E♭ – B♭7/D – E♭ – Cm/E♭ – F7/E♭ – B♭/D – E♭/D
  I – ii (bass E♭) – V⁶₅ – I – vi⁶ – II⁴₂ – V⁶ – I (bass D)

B Section

• Cm7 – F7 – B♭ – B♭dim7 – Fm/A♭ – A♭dim7 – E♭/G – A♭/G
  vi7 – II7 – V – v°7 – ii⁶ – iv°7 – I⁶ – IV (bass G)

C Section

• Fm7 – B♭7 – E♭ – E♭7 – A♭maj7 – Adim7 – E♭m/B♭ – A♭m6/C♭
  ii7 – V7 – I – I7 – IVmaj7 – #iv°7 – i⁶₄ – iv6 (bass C♭)

D Section

• B♭7 – E♭/B♭ – B♭maj7(no3) – B♭7 – E♭dim7/Bbb – E♭/B♭ – B♭maj7(no3) – B♭7 – E♭7 – A♭/E♭ – Fm/E♭ – B♭7/E♭ – E♭
  V7 – I⁶₄ – Vmaj7(no3) – V7 – i°⁴₃ – I⁶₄ – Vmaj7(no3) – V7 – I7 – IV⁶₄ – ii (bass E♭) – V7 (bass E♭) – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• E♭m/B♭ (i⁶₄) is borrowed from the parallel key, E♭ minor.
• A♭m6/C♭ (iv6 (bass C♭)) is borrowed from the parallel key, E♭ minor.
• F7/E♭ acts as V/V: it resolves to B♭/D.
• F7 acts as V/V: it resolves to B♭.
• E♭7 acts as V/IV: it resolves to A♭maj7.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords: the OpenEWLD lead-sheet collection (Simonetta et al., 2018). Community-contributed lead sheet (chord symbols over the melody) from the Wikifonia archive, MIT licence. Title and songwriter credit as written on the sheet.
• Section names: detected by code from repeated 8-, 12- and 16-bar phrases (letters such as A and B mark different phrases; a phrase that comes back keeps its letter). Lead sheets rarely print section names.
• Not verified: only one lead sheet of this song is available, so it hasn't been cross-checked.
• 2 chords were simplified to the closest symbol our player supports (for example, an unusual added tone dropped).
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.