Chinatown, My Chinatown by Jean Schwartz

Overview

Key: C major · Chords used: 10 · Sections: 4

Form: A Section → B Section → A Section → C 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 1

• C – G7
  I – V7

B Section

• Am – D7 – G7
  vi – II7 – V7

A Section 2

• C – C7 – F
  I – I7 – IV

C Section

• Fm – C – Gm – A7 – D7 – Dm7 – G7 – C
  iv – I – v – VI7 – II7 – ii7 – V7 – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• Fm (iv) is borrowed from the parallel key, C minor.
• Gm (v) is borrowed from the parallel key, C minor.
• D7 acts as V/V: it resolves to G7.
• C7 acts as V/IV: it resolves to F.

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.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.