The Sheik of Araby by Ted Snyder

Overview

Key: B♭ major · Chords used: 13 · Sections: 4

Form: A Section → B Section → C 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

A Section

• B♭ – Bdim7 – Cm7 – F9 – B♭
  I – #i°7 – ii7 – V9 – I

B Section

• B♭6/D – D♭dim7 – Cm7 – F9 – Cm7 – F7 – Faug7 – B♭6
  I6 (bass D) – biii°7 – ii7 – V9 – ii7 – V7 – V+7 – I6

C Section

• Cm7 – F7 – B♭ – Bdim7 – Cm7 – F9 – Cm7 – F7 – E♭7♭5 – D7
  ii7 – V7 – I – #i°7 – ii7 – V9 – ii7 – V7 – IV7♭5 – III7

D Section

• G7 – C7 – Cm7 – F7 – B♭
  VI7 – II7 – ii7 – V7 – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• Faug7 (V+7) is borrowed from the parallel key, B♭ minor.

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.