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Harmonic analysis of "Infant Eyes" by Wayne Shorter

Wayne Shorter's "Infant Eyes" is a great tune for the advanced IFR student. Its tonal ambiguity
and multiple key centers provide an ever-changing backdrop against which to improvise
interesting melodies, yet most of the harmonic material comes directly from the sounds we
study in IFR Exercises 3 and 4.

This article is intended for advanced IFR students who are already working at the level of IFR
Exercise 4: Mixed Harmony or IFR Exercise 5: Free Harmony. The harmonic concepts I will
discuss in this article are actually quite simple to understand, but in order to apply these
ideas you need to be very comfortable visualizing musical shapes within the octave. In most
cases the chord or scale involved will be one that you probably already know. But because the
key center is constantly changing, you need to be able to visualize these musical shapes in
unusual places. This ability to visualize a "scale within a scale" is really the key to learning
how to improvise comfortably over a composition like "Infant Eyes". So if you're at the level of
IFR Exercise 4 and you want to learn how to apply your skills to a more sophisticated
composition, then this article is for you!

Establishing the key of the music

For simple music like pop songs, blues songs, jazz standards, etc., establishing the key of the
music is straightforward because essentially everyone who hears the song will feel the tonal
center in the same place. But what do you do when the composition is so ambiguous that
different people might feel different things? The composition "Infant Eyes" for example is
sometimes written in the key signature of Bb and sometimes in the key signature of Eb. Which
is correct? And with so many chords coming in from different scales, what's the point of trying
to identify an overall key signature in the first place?

For the improviser, choosing a key in which to visualize the composition is not merely an
academic exercise. It's a creative decision that lets us decide how we are going to think about
the sounds in the composition. And the only criterion for that decision is your own comfort
level as you are improvising. So you want to choose the key that allows you to visualize all of
the chords and scales of the composition in the simplest and most natural way possible. This is
what I have tried to do with the tonal sketch below.

Download the tonal sketch

The drawing below is a tonal sketch of "Infant Eyes". (You can download this drawing in full
size by right-clicking on the image and selecting "Save Image As..." or "Save Linked File As..."
and then choosing a folder on your computer.)
This is the way that I personally hear the harmony, and the way that it's most comfortable for
me to visualize all of the sounds of the composition. From this point of view, we could say
that the song is in the key of Bb because note 1 in my tonal sketch corresponds to the note Bb
on Wayne Shorter's original recording of "Infant Eyes" (from the album "Speak No Evil").

Analyzing the first line of "Infant Eyes"

I hear the opening chord of the
composition as the 6- chord, followed
by the 5- chord which begins the
modulation to the 4 chord. If you
have been practicing with IFR
Standards Workout 1, you will
immediately recognize this
progression for its similarity to the
opening chords to both "There Will
Never Be Another You" and also "Blue
in Green". I suggest that you study
this chord progression in those songs
first, because they provide a much
simpler harmonic context in which to
clearly hear this modulation.

The final chord in the first line is the 7D13b9 chord, which creates a dissonance very similar to
the function of the b7D chord that appears in the analogous place in "There Will Never Be
Another You". And although the notes of the 7D13b9 chord may be new to you, the overall
effect that this chord gives to the line should be very familiar to you from your experience
with "There Will Never Be Another You".

The difference is that here Wayne Shorter is using a much more complex sound which also
appears in many other compositions by Shorter and Miles during this same period. When I
listen to the recording, I hear this moment as a diminished scale of eight notes. I have
sketched out this scale and indicated the notes that make up the basic four-note chord. You
may hear the harmony differently but this is the way that I would summarize what I hear and
feel in this moment.

Analyzing the second line of "Infant Eyes"

The second line opens
with a great sound that
every advanced IFR
student should take the
time to study and
master. It's the sound of
a major chord based on
the note b6 of the
original key. This sound
appears in many jazz
standards including
Jobim's "Triste", and I
hear this as a lydian
scale starting from the
note b6. (By "lydian" I simply mean the fourth harmonic environment of the major scale.) So
we are taking the scale that goes with the 4 chord and we are building it in a new location.
Starting from the note b6 in the drawing to the right, can you trace the intervals of the fourth
harmonic environment? This is the ability I mentioned earlier to visualize a "scale within a
scale" that we need in order to comfortably see the harmonic flow of a composition like
"Infant Eyes".

The rest of the second line contains sounds already familiar to IFR students. The 5Dsus chord
is like the 5D chord that we have been studying ever since IFR Exercise 3: Pure Harmony,
except that the third of the chord (note 7) is now suspended up to note 1. The 4- chord
appears in countless jazz standards including "Green Dolphin Street", "After You've Gone" and
"But Not for Me". And the 1D chord is one of the very first secondary dominant chords that we
learned about in IFR Exercise 4: Mixed Harmony.

Analyzing the third line of "Infant Eyes"

The third line of the composition is a
very simple harmonic device that
consists of displacing an entire
harmonic environment by a half step.
The line opens in the 4 chord and
then moves this entire scale up one
half step to ​b5. Then this entire
system repeats itself. This half step
displacement is incredibly fertile
terrain for creating beautiful melodic
lines. I encourage you to study these
two chords until switching between
them becomes essentially effortless.

Note: The slash chord that I indicated in the chord symbol b5/4 is just there to remind us that
in the original recording the bass player stays on note 4 during this measure. But this doesn't
alter the basic harmonic environment. (Notice that the scale for the b5/4 chord is identical to
the scale for the b5 chord that appears two measures later.)

Analyzing the fourth line of "Infant Eyes"

The fourth line of the

composition perfectly
parallels the second line
except that now the
sounds are displaced to a
different location. The
line opens with a major
chord build on b2 of our
tonal map. Again this is
the lydian sound, so
what we are really doing
is building the fourth
harmonic environment
starting from the note
b2. (If you have trouble seeing that, don't worry about it. The important thing is to study and
master each chord on its own, regardless of what it may have in common with other chords.)

The next chord is the 1Dsus chord which we already discussed earlier, and the following chord
is b7-, which is essentially a 2- chord displaced to the note b7. The 4Dsus chord uses the same
mixolydian scale that we used for 5Dsus and 1Dsus in other moments. ("Mixolydian" just refers
to the scale of the 5D harmonic environment. This entire scale is displaced down to note 4 in
the current measure.) And finally the line ends with our old friend the 3D chord, which was
the very first chord that we ever studied in IFR Exercise 4: Mixed Harmony.

Lines 5 and 6 of "Infant Eyes"

For completeness I will include scale drawings of the chords to lines 5 and 6 but these are the
same chords that we already saw in lines 1 and 2 so I won't repeat my comments about them:
How to approach your practicing

Take your time. The most important piece of advice I can give you is to slow down and really
take your time to truly explore and master each harmonic environment of this piece. There
isn't as much new material here as it may appear at first. If you are already working at the
level of IFR Exercise 4: Mixed Harmony, then you probably already know 80% of these chords.
The chords that are most likely new to you are 7D13b9, b6, b5, b2 and b7-. That's only five
new chords! If you just go about your work methodically and add one of these chords to your
repertoire every two weeks, in a matter of ten weeks you will have everything you need to
improvise with complete confidence over "Infant Eyes" for the rest of your life. More
importantly, the lessons that you learn in each of these new harmonic environments will keep
coming up in song after song. So don't forget that when you study "Infant Eyes" you are
learning much more than just one composition. You are also learning important lessons about
harmony that will enrich your playing over any song.

Use a keyboard. Because of the amount of root movement in this piece, I think it's going to
be essential for you to have an external reference to make sure that you are hearing the notes
and chords correctly. I would encourage you to use a keyboard for this part of your music
study. Start by choosing a key in which you feel comfortable playing, and pick just two chords
from the song. Play the first chord with your left hand and use your right hand to walk
through the entire scale that corresponds to this chord. Sing these tonal numbers out loud as
you play. Then advance to the second chord and do the same. Play the chord with your left
hand as you play the scale with your right hand and sing the notes out loud. Stay with these
two chords until the change feels natural and you don't need to think about it anymore. You
should get to the point where you can picture both scales in your mind at the same time, so
switching between them becomes effortless. Use this technique to study any chord change in
the composition that gives you difficulty.

Improvise, improvise, improvise. I think that the best way to truly understand any chord
progression is to spend lots of time improvising your own melodies across it. With a
composition like "Infant Eyes", there is an additional step that you will probably want to
practice first. Because this composition uses so many scales built from unusual tonal centers,
it's worth taking the time to practice improvising in each of these harmonic environments
separately just the same way you studied the seven basic chords of the major scale in IFR
Exercise 3: Pure Harmony. Specifically, you can use the exercise Seven Worlds Expanded to
practice improvising in each chord on its own. This will give you the ability to project both the
overall harmonic environment and also the specific chord notes in any octave on your
instrument. I think that this preparatory step will make it much easier for you to enjoy
improvising across the entire progression later on.

Follow your own creative voice. The chords and scales that I outlined in this article are not
intended in any way to limit your creative choices as an improviser. This article isn't about the
creative contribution that you will add to the music, but rather it's about the underlying
composition itself. The scales that I have listed above are the scales that I hear the musicians
using at each moment in the composition. So I encourage you to study these sounds deeply
because understanding the harmony of the piece will make it much easier for you to express
your own melodies when you are improvising. But don't forget that your own music doesn't
come from this harmonic analysis. It comes from your own imagination. And when you are
improvising over "Infant Eyes" I encourage you to follow your own creative voice and to play
directly from your imagination. Don't worry about whether the sounds you imagine clash with
the underlying harmony or not. By the mere fact that you are imagining a sound, it can't be
wrong. Sometimes your musical idea will harmonize peacefully with the chord of the moment,
and sometimes your musical idea will stand out violently. But in both cases it will be perfect,
because that's how you imagined it.

I hope that this analysis of "Infant Eyes" empowers you to add this beautiful composition to
your repertoire. And I hope that your explorations of these unusual harmonic environments
lead you to many interesting discoveries about melody, harmony and our musical system.

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