Song of India by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Overview

Key: G major · Chords used: 10 · Sections: 7

Form: Lead-in → A Section → A Section → B Section → C Section → A Section → D 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

Lead-in

• G – Em – G7 – G – Cm
  I – vi – I7 – I – iv

A Section 1

• G – Gm (×2)
  I – i

A Section 2

• G – Gm6 (×2)
  I – i6

B Section

• G – D9
  I – V9

C Section

• Em – Gaug – G – C – Cm
  vi – I+ – I – IV – iv

A Section 3

• G – D7 – G – Gm – D7
  I – V7 – I – i – V7

D Section

• C – Em – G7 – C – Cm – G
  IV – vi – I7 – IV – iv – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• Cm (iv) is borrowed from the parallel key, G minor.
• Gm (i) is borrowed from the parallel key, G minor.
• G7 acts as V/IV: it resolves to C.

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.