Girl From Ipanema

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Girl From Ipanema

The Girl from Ipanema (Garota de Ipanema) is an essential jazz standard that every jazz musician should know. The A sections chord progression, basically a I II7 II V is functionally the same as Take the A Train, Jersey Bounce, Desafinado and a few others.

The Girl from Ipanema is a well-known bossa nova, a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s that won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes with English lyrics written later by Norman Gimbel. When sung by female artists it is typically rendered as "The Boy from Ipanema".

The Girl from Ipanema is in the Real Book - Volume 1 — Sixth Edition book.

Learning the Song

The Girl from Ipanema is a somewhat easy song to learn. It's an AABA song form. The A sections are a I II7 II bII7b5 I progression with the bII7b5 being a tritone sub for a V . A1 turns back to the I using the bII7b5 tritone.

In the key of F major, the most common key this is: Fmaj7 G7 Gm7 Gb7b5 1st ending) Fmaj7 Gb7b5 2nd ending) Fmaj7. Then modulates again up a half step to Gbmaj7 B7 F#m9 D7 Gm9 Eb7.

The B section finishes with a III VI7 II V7 to the last A section Am7 D7 Gm7 C7.

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Girl From Ipanema…

Ukulele TABS

Here is one way to play the melody for The Girl From Ipanema in a "C" tuned ukulele, with low "G", C tuning.

To play in the original key of F you need a low "G" to cover the B below middle C in the melody.

• Girl from Ipanema Tom Jobim and Joao Gilberto Reunited - Joao Gilberto and Tom Jobim reunite to play their old song, The Girl From Ipanema (A Garota de Ipanema)years later.
• Astrid Gilberto Stan Getz Ipanema 64 - Astrud Gilberto singing "Girl From Ipanema" with Stan Getz in the 1964 flick "Get Yourself A College Girl.

2008 jam at Dale Unger's Nazareth Guitar Institute, Nazareth, PA USA

Exploring on Ukulele

We'll use this most famous Bossa Nova to explore the Bossa Nova style on ukulele.

The Girl From Ipanema

by Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim , also known as Tom Jobim

Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz - The Girl From Ipanema (Garota de Ipanema) (1964) LIVE

This is the original hit from 1964 that created the Bossa Nova craze worldwide. Garota de Ipanema won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and started Astrud Gilberto's career.

Bossa Nova is one of my favorite styles to play. First checkout the videos the get the feel of the song.

The Girl From Ipanema - Frank Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim | Concert Collection

Bossa Nova on Ukulele

The role of ukulele performing in the Bossa Nova style is the same as the guitar's role. The guitarist would typically play a nylon string classical guitar.

Bossa is a syncopated style with a bass note / chord approach. Very doable on a guitar and we'll have to simulate it on ukulele.

The bass is typically the root or fifth of the chords and the thumb plays that as the lowest note of the chord voicing. The index, middle, and ring fingers play the remaining part of the chord.

The rhythmic part of the style is a mixture of Levels I, II and IIR of the Modular Phonetic Rhythm System by Chuck Anderson. This is the sytstem I use with GREAT results.

Key of Db

As a jazz standard The Girl From Ipanema is typically performed in the Key of F as in the Sinatra and Jobim video. The original Getz/Gilberto recording is in the Key of Db .

Here I transposed to the Key of Db for the ukulele to take advantage of all four strings and get the same feeling of the original performance.

Download PDF File

Leadsheet Key of Db.

Each major and minor keys conveys it's own characteristics and emotions. If doing a song instrumentally, i.e. no vocals, you can pick any key that gives you the characteristics and emotions you are trying to convey. I picked Db to keep the feeling of the original Astrud Gilberto's vocal recording.

German music theorist and composer John Mattheson laid these characteristics and emotions out in his writings in 1713. They were rediscovered and translated by Rita Steblin in her book A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries in 1983.

Background Chords on Ukulele

These are the chords I'm playing in the video.

The A chords are: Db6/9, Eb13, Ebm7, Ebb7(D7), Ebb7b5(D7b5). In the A section the Harmonic Analysis (HA) is: I II7 Im7 bII7 I bII7 , Hence the technically correct Ebb7 for the II chord. The Ebb7 (Ebb G Bbb Dbb) is same shape as D7 (D F# A C) and are Enharmonic Equivalents which you might already know.

The A Section Chords for Ukulele

The B Section Chords for Ukulele

The B section of the song is rich in harmonic movement, is actually not that hard to navigate.

The B chords are: D6/9, G9, Dm9, Bb9, Ebm9, Cb9, Fm7, Bb7#11b9, Ebm7, Ab7#11b9,. In the A section the Harmonic Analysis (HA) is: I II7 Im7 bII7 I bII7, Hence the technically correct Ebbb7 ( E triple flat 7 ) for the II chord. The same shape as a D7 which you might already know.