Fly Me to the Moon

Bart Howard composed Fly Me to the Moon in 1954, and the song — popularised by Frank Sinatra's 1964 recording with the Count Basie Orchestra — has become one of the central American Songbook standards. The Trinity Grade 7 arrangement gives a serious piano student a real chance to engage with the harmonic substance of mid-twentieth-century jazz writing: ii–V–I progressions, secondary dominants, and the swing-feel articulation that the idiom demands.

Technically the piece tests three Grade 7 priorities: a swung-quaver reading of straight notation that holds steady against a walking bass, voicing the right-hand melodic line clearly through a chromatic harmonic landscape, and a feel for the AABA song form that underpins the writing. Hand position expands beyond a five-finger frame; the harmonic vocabulary includes diminished and altered-dominant chords that need careful voicing.

Two pitfalls. First, students who don't know the swing convention play the piece straight — it sounds correct but loses its character; a light triplet feel on the quavers is what the piece is asking for. Second, the right-hand melodic line often gets played at one volume from start to finish; the AABA form has a clear arc with a B-section lift, and the dynamic plan should track that arc.

The Sinatra recording is commercial; for an editorial reference, listen to any straight-ahead jazz piano version of the standard (Bill Evans's recordings of the song are canonical) to internalise the right swing weight and the harmonic substance the arrangement is reaching for.