How to play autumn leaves solo fingerstyle guitar. This song is one I’ve been playing for a while- the changes are not too hard and they’re beautiful, I think. You can hear I rely quite a bit on a blues progression to fill in- it fits pretty well. If you’re interested in playing this style of music- or this lovely tune- let me know!
“Autumn Leaves” is a popular song and jazz standard composed by Joseph Kosma in 1945 with original lyrics by Jacques Prévert in French (original French title: “Les Feuilles mortes”), and later by Johnny Mercer in English. An instrumental version by pianist Roger Williams was a number one best-seller in the US Billboard charts of 1955.
Kosma was a native of Hungary who was introduced to Prévert in Paris. They collaborated on the song Les Feuilles mortes (“The Dead Leaves”) for the 1946 film Les Portes de la nuit (Gates of the Night) where it was sung by Irène Joachim and Yves Montand. The poem was published, after the death of Jacques Prévert, in the book “Soleil de Nuit” in 1980. Kosma was influenced by a piece of ballet music, “Rendez-vous” written for Roland Petit, performed in Paris at the end of the Second World War, large parts of the melodies are exactly the same, which was itself borrowed partially from “Poème d’octobre” by Jules Massenet. The first commercial recordings of “Les Feuilles mortes” were released in 1950, by Cora Vaucaire and by Yves Montand. Johnny Mercer wrote the English lyric and gave it the title “Autumn Leaves”.
The song is in AABC form.[5] “Autumn Leaves” offers a popular way for beginning jazz musicians to become acquainted with jazz harmony as the chord progression consists almost solely of ii–V–I and ii–V sequences which are typical of jazz. Although it is in most times played in G minor, the original key of the composition was A minor.
