Limehouse Blues by Philip Braham

Overview

Key: A♭ major · Chords used: 11 · 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

• D♭7 – B♭7
  IV7 – II7

B Section

• A♭ – C7 – Fm – B♭7 – E♭7
  I – III7 – vi – II7 – V7

A Section 2

Same chords as A Section 1.

C Section

• A♭/E♭ – F7 – B♭m – D♭m6 – E♭7 – A♭ – D♭m – A♭
  I⁶₄ – VI7 – ii – iv6 – V7 – I – iv – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• D♭m6 (iv6) is borrowed from the parallel key, A♭ minor.
• D♭m (iv) is borrowed from the parallel key, A♭ minor.
• B♭7 acts as V/V: it resolves to E♭7.
• C7 acts as V/vi: it resolves to Fm.
• F7 acts as V/ii: it resolves to B♭m.

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.