O Mio Babbino Caro by Giacomo Puccini

Overview

Key: A♭ major · Chords used: 13 · Sections: 3

Form: A 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

• A♭ – A♭/C (×2)
  I – I⁶
• A♭ – E♭ – B♭m7 – Fm – B♭9 – E♭ – E♭7
  I – V – ii7 – vi – II9 – V – V7

B Section

• A♭ – A♭/E♭ – A♭/C (×2)
  I – I⁶₄ – I⁶
• A♭ – D♭ – E♭7/B♭ – Cm – Fm – D♭ – B♭m7 – Fm
  I – IV – V⁴₃ – iii – vi – IV – ii7 – vi

C Section

• B♭m7 – E♭ – A♭/C – D♭/F – B♭m9 – E♭ – A♭ – A♭/C – A♭ – A♭/E♭ – A♭/C – D♭ – B♭m7 – A♭
  ii7 – V – I⁶ – IV⁶ – ii9 – V – I – I⁶ – I – I⁶₄ – I⁶ – IV – ii7 – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• B♭9 acts as V/V: it resolves to E♭.

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.