Beyond the Blue Horizon by Richard A. Whiting & W. Franke Harling

Overview

Key: B♭ major · Chords used: 20 · 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

• B♭ – C♯dim – B♭ – E♭m – F7 – B♭ – C♯dim – B♭ – G9
  I – #ii° – I – iv – V7 – I – #ii° – I – VI9

B Section

• Cm7 – E♭m6 – B♭ – C♯dim – Am – C – C7 – F7
  ii7 – iv6 – I – #ii° – vii – II – II7 – V7

C Section

• Faug – B♭ – C♯dim – B♭ – E♭m – F7 – B♭ – Bdim – G7
  V+ – I – #ii° – I – iv – V7 – I – #i° – VI7

D Section

• Cm – Cm7♭5 – Cm7 – E♭m – B♭ – A7 – Gm – Cm7 – Dm – F7 – B♭
  ii – iiø7 – ii7 – iv – I – VII7 – vi – ii7 – iii – V7 – I
• Cm9 – F9(no5) (×2)
  ii9 – V9(no5)
• B♭
  I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• E♭m (iv) is borrowed from the parallel key, B♭ minor.
• E♭m6 (iv6) is borrowed from the parallel key, B♭ minor.
• Faug (V+) is borrowed from the parallel key, B♭ minor.
• Cm7♭5 (iiø7) is borrowed from the parallel key, B♭ minor.
• C7 acts as V/V: it resolves to F7.

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.
• 1 chord was 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.