How Long Has This Been Going On by George Gershwin

Overview

Key: G major · Chords used: 18 · Sections: 4

Form: A Section → A Section → Bridge → A 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

• Am7 – A♭dim7 – Gmaj7(no3) – G7♭9 – Cmaj7 – F7 – G/B – B♭dim7 – Am7 – A♭dim7 – Am7 – E♭9 – D9 – Bm7 – E7♭9
  ii7 – bii°7 – Imaj7(no3) – I7b9 – IVmaj7 – bVII7 – I⁶ – biii°7 – ii7 – bii°7 – ii7 – bVI9 – V9 – iii7 – VI7b9

A Section 2

• Am7 – A♭dim7 – Gmaj7(no3) – G7♭9 – Cmaj7 – F7 – G/B – B♭dim7 – Am7 – A♭dim7 – Am7 – E♭9 – D9 – Gmaj7 – Gaug7
  ii7 – bii°7 – Imaj7(no3) – I7b9 – IVmaj7 – bVII7 – I⁶ – biii°7 – ii7 – bii°7 – ii7 – bVI9 – V9 – Imaj7 – I+7

Bridge

• Cmaj7 – F7 (×3)
  IVmaj7 – bVII7
• Cmaj7 – C♯m7♭5
  IVmaj7 – #ivø7
• F♯7♭9 – Bm7 (×4)
  VII7b9 – iii7
• B♭13
  bIII13

A Section 3

• Am7 – A♭dim7 – Gmaj7(no3) – G7♭9 – Cmaj7 – F7 – G/B – B♭dim7 – Am7 – A♭dim7 – Am7 – E♭9 – D9 – G69
  ii7 – bii°7 – Imaj7(no3) – I7b9 – IVmaj7 – bVII7 – I⁶ – biii°7 – ii7 – bii°7 – ii7 – bVI9 – V9 – I69

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• F7 (bVII7) is borrowed from the parallel key, G minor.
• G7♭9 acts as V/IV: it resolves to Cmaj7.
• F♯7♭9 acts as V/iii: it resolves to Bm7.

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.