I've been playing 'La Chanson d'Orphée' ('A day in the life of a Fool') and 'Petite Fleur' from the excellent book, 'Un siècle de chansons françaises'.
As an aside, I like this series of French standards because, unlike many French and Italian songbooks that print the chords using their system (C = do; D = re; E = mi etc), this series uses the (for me) familiar American/British system. I've spoken to French pianists who tell me that it's easy to switch between the two but I have enough trouble playing with our good old CDEFGAB chord notation. I also remember the first time I looked at a German songbook and was confronted with a chord that was designated as 'H'! For what it's worth, there's an interesting article about all this at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signature_names_and_translations
Anyway, returning to the title of this post: both the above songs have the key signature of two flats. Judging by how they sound, I assume they are in Gm rather than Bb major. But what is it with the F sharps that occur from time to time in both songs? Are these just passing notes? Or is there something more fundamental going on? Are they perhaps part of a scale? Or is it just (as explained in the replies about How High the Moon) a temporary key change?
In 'Petite fleur', the first of these F# notes occurs in bar 4; in 'La Chanson d'Orphée', the first one also occurs in bar 4.
And finally, a footnote: someone once told me that Sidney Bechet composed 'Petite Fleur' while sitting (squatting?) on a loo in Paris in the 1950s. Has anyone else heard this story?
Thanks in advance for comments.
M
As an aside, I like this series of French standards because, unlike many French and Italian songbooks that print the chords using their system (C = do; D = re; E = mi etc), this series uses the (for me) familiar American/British system. I've spoken to French pianists who tell me that it's easy to switch between the two but I have enough trouble playing with our good old CDEFGAB chord notation. I also remember the first time I looked at a German songbook and was confronted with a chord that was designated as 'H'! For what it's worth, there's an interesting article about all this at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signature_names_and_translations
Anyway, returning to the title of this post: both the above songs have the key signature of two flats. Judging by how they sound, I assume they are in Gm rather than Bb major. But what is it with the F sharps that occur from time to time in both songs? Are these just passing notes? Or is there something more fundamental going on? Are they perhaps part of a scale? Or is it just (as explained in the replies about How High the Moon) a temporary key change?
In 'Petite fleur', the first of these F# notes occurs in bar 4; in 'La Chanson d'Orphée', the first one also occurs in bar 4.
And finally, a footnote: someone once told me that Sidney Bechet composed 'Petite Fleur' while sitting (squatting?) on a loo in Paris in the 1950s. Has anyone else heard this story?
Thanks in advance for comments.
M
