Misty Chords & Cool Reharmonization
October 12, 2023
If you want to learn Misty chords to the jazz standard Misty then you’ve come to the right place!
Ok, so as promised I charted out the chords for the jazz piano video lesson I made on reharmonizing Misty.
If you haven’t seen the video check it out here: Misty reharmonization lesson.
Thanks to Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson for their inspiration in building these Misty Chords for the 21st century.
Original Misty Chords (with melody)
Here is the chord chart for the reharmonized chords. As you can see there is a lot of inner voice motion, delayed resolution, tritone substitutions, and some other voodoo stuff. 🙂
Make sure you watch the performance and lesson on these new Misty chords below.
The traditional misty chords are as follows:
Ebmaj7 – Bbm7 Eb7 – Abmaj7 – Abm7 Db7 – Ebmaj7 Cm7 – Fm7 Bb7 – Gm7 C7 – Fm7 Bb7
That’s the A section of the song.
Now, in the next section I’m going to show you some much cooler Misty chords. You’ll get much more people taking notice if you play these chords below.
Reharmonized Misty Chords
3 Techniques I’m Using To Spice Up The Misty Chords
- In the very beginning I’m harmonizing the 1st part of the melody with a dominant 7th sus going to a dominant 7th. Most people just play the first 2 notes as pickup notes. I wanted too add some interesting sounding jazz harmony into the mix.
- The first traditional chord of Misty is usually just a basic Ebmaj7. To create some forward motion I’m harmonizing it in the very beginning with an Eb diminished 7th chord. Then, I finally resolve to the Ebmaj7 chord. This diminished resolving to major is a jazz theory technique I learned from Bill Evans.
- I’m also using a tritone substitution in the last line. This is a fundamental jazz chord technique that essentially takes a dominant chord and substitutes it with another dominant chord 6 half steps higher. It’s a beautiful sound.
Hope you all enjoy the reharmonization video and the 2 different Misty chord charts. Let me know if there are other tunes or jazz lessons you guys would like me to dive into?
Update: I just did a whole reharmonization lesson on the chord changes to Here’s That Rainy Day. Check it out! 🙂
You can also immediately access over 22 hours of tunes, chords, and reharmonization secrets in my training program right here.
and the segunada part of the misty theme. her can you explain
Hi Carlos. I’ll see if I can do that in a future lesson.
Steve … man thank’s for share this jazz lessons … Misty is definitely one of my favorites, I don’t play jazz but this way of teaching is just great, this song is being easy to understand and I was hoping to learn it some day … still sounds funny the low e sharp note but the more I see the way you do the more i get it … my name is Jorge .. I promise that I will play this song using the re harmonization in my youtube channel and I will made clear that I learn it from you my friend … take care
Welcome to the community here Jorge ! I can’t wait to see your youtube version of the tune. Thanks for your support by telling people where you learned it Jorge 🙂
O.K. I LOVE THE VIDEO DEMONSTRATION
DO YOU SEND ALSO THE PDF
SAM
sam.tamelghaghet@laposte.net
Glad you find it helpful Tom. Thanks for the comment!
Hi Steve, thank you for putting up this version of Misty and for the tutorial. The chords are AMAZING! I’m really loving jazz chords in the context of a song or riff. I think I’ve got the jazz bug. I had a blast learning the song, and will keep working on it for a few more days until I can play it smoothly. Thanks again!
You’re most welcome my friend. Happy to help!
Oh you know I actually have a question if you don’t mind. What beat/tempo would you use for misty, or is it more of a looser tempo song? Thanks.
I play it as a ballad (around 54 ppm) but theoretically you could play it as more of a medium or even more rubato and free.
Thanks, I’ll give that a try. I’ve been playing it during your video to get better timing.