Makin' Whoopee! by Walter Donaldson

Overview

Key: F major · Chords used: 16 · Sections: 4

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

• Fmaj7 – F♯dim7 – Gm7 – C7 – Cm7 – F7 – B♭maj7 – E♭7 – Fmaj7 – Dm7 – D♭7 – C7 – F6 – Dm7 – Gm7 – C7
  Imaj7 – #i°7 – ii7 – V7 – v7 – I7 – IVmaj7 – bVII7 – Imaj7 – vi7 – bVI7 – V7 – I6 – vi7 – ii7 – V7

B Section 1

• Fmaj7 – F♯dim7 – Gm7 – C7 – Cm7 – F7 – B♭maj7 – E♭7 – Fmaj7 – Dm7 – D♭7 – C7 – F6
  Imaj7 – #i°7 – ii7 – V7 – v7 – I7 – IVmaj7 – bVII7 – Imaj7 – vi7 – bVI7 – V7 – I6

C Section

• Am7♭5 – D7♭9 – Gm7 – B♭m7 – E♭7 – Fmaj7 – Am7♭5 – D7♭9 – Gm – B♭m7 – E♭7
  iiiø7 – VI7b9 – ii7 – iv7 – bVII7 – Imaj7 – iiiø7 – VI7b9 – ii – iv7 – bVII7

B Section 2

• Am7 – D7♭9 – Gm7 – C7 – Fmaj7 – F♯dim7 – Gm7 – C7 – Cm7 – F7 – B♭maj7 – E♭7 – Fmaj7 – Dm7 – D♭7 – C7 – F6 – Dm7 – Gm7 – C7
  iii7 – VI7b9 – ii7 – V7 – Imaj7 – #i°7 – ii7 – V7 – v7 – I7 – IVmaj7 – bVII7 – Imaj7 – vi7 – bVI7 – V7 – I6 – vi7 – ii7 – V7

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• Cm7 (v7) is borrowed from the parallel key, F minor.
• E♭7 (bVII7) is borrowed from the parallel key, F minor.
• B♭m7 (iv7) is borrowed from the parallel key, F minor.
• F7 acts as V/IV: it resolves to B♭maj7.
• D7♭9 acts as V/ii: it resolves to Gm7.

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.