Pretty Baby by Egbert Van Alstyne & Tony Jackson

Overview

Key: E♭ major · Chords used: 10 · Sections: 2

Form: A 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

• E♭ – F♯dim – B♭7 – Fm7 – B♭7
  I – #ii° – V7 – ii7 – V7
• B♭aug – E♭ (×2)
  V+ – I
• F♯dim – E♭ – F♯dim – B♭7 – Fm7 – B♭7 – B♭aug
  #ii° – I – #ii° – V7 – ii7 – V7 – V+

B Section

• E♭ – B♭aug – E♭ – B♭7 – E♭7 – A♭ – D♭7 – C7 – Fm7 – B♭7 – E♭ – F♯dim – B♭7 – Fm7 – B♭7 – C7 – F7 – B♭7 – E♭
  I – V+ – I – V7 – I7 – IV – bVII7 – VI7 – ii7 – V7 – I – #ii° – V7 – ii7 – V7 – VI7 – II7 – V7 – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• B♭aug (V+) is borrowed from the parallel key, E♭ minor.
• D♭7 (bVII7) is borrowed from the parallel key, E♭ minor.
• E♭7 acts as V/IV: it resolves to A♭.
• C7 acts as V/ii: it resolves to Fm7.
• F7 acts as V/V: it resolves to B♭7.

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.