Bird changes

The Blues for Alice changes, Bird changes, Bird Blues, or New York Blues changes, is a chord progression, often named after Charlie Parker ("Bird"), which is a variation of the twelve-bar blues.

The progression uses a series of sequential II-V or secondary II-V progressions, and has been used in pieces such as Parker's "Blues for Alice" and Toots Thielemans's "Bluesette"[1].

Structure

The blues progression, in B♭, is as follows:

Popular music symbols
| Bb        | Bb           | Bb          | Bb          |
| Eb        | Eb           | Bb          | Bb          |
| F         | Eb           | Bb          | Bb          ||
Different notations
Chord Function Numerical Roman
Numeral
Tonic T 1 I
Sub-dominant S 4 IV
Dominant D 5 V

The Bird Blues progression, in B♭, is as follows[2]:

Popular music symbols
| BbMaj7    | Amin7b5 / D7 | Gmin7 / C7  | Fmin7 / Bb7  |
| Eb7       | Ebmin7 / Ab7 | Dmin7 / G7  | C#min7 / F#7 |
| Cmin7     | F7           | BbMaj7 / G7 | Cmin7 / F7   ||
Roman numerals
  Bb:        Gmin:          F(min):        Eb:
| I         | ii    / V    | ii    /  V   | ii   / V     |
  Eb:        G:             F#(min):       F(min):
| I7        | subii / subV | subii / subV | subii / subV |
  Bb:
| ii        | V            | I7   /  VI7  | ii    / V    ||

Note the cycle of ii-V progressions leading to the IV chord (E♭7), and the tritone substitution of the dominant chords leading by half-step to the V chord (F7)[2].

Sources

  1. ^ Hatfield, Ken (2005). Jazz and the Classical Guitar Theory and Applications, p.182. ISBN 0786672366.
  2. ^ a b Baerman, Noah (1998). Complete Jazz Keyboard Method: Intermediate Jazz Keyboard, p.63. ISBN 0882849115.
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