Down by the Riverside by Traditional

Overview

Key: B♭ major · Chords used: 7 · Sections: 5

Form: A Section → A Section → B Section → B 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

• B♭ – E♭ – E♭m6 – B♭6
  I – IV – iv6 – I6
• B♭ – F7 (×3)
  I – V7
• B♭ – B♭6
  I – I6

A Section 2

• B♭ – F7 – B♭ – E♭ – E♭m6 – B♭6
  I – V7 – I – IV – iv6 – I6
• B♭ – F7 (×2)
  I – V7
• B♭
  I

B Section 1

• B♭7 – E♭ – B♭ – F7 – C7 – F7 – B♭
  I7 – IV – I – V7 – II7 – V7 – I

B Section 2

• B♭7 – E♭ – B♭ – F7 – B♭
  I7 – IV – I – V7 – I

C Section

• B♭ – E♭ – B♭
  I – IV – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• E♭m6 (iv6) is borrowed from the parallel key, B♭ minor.
• B♭7 acts as V/IV: it resolves to E♭.
• 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.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.