Giant Steps Lead Sheet — Free PDF Download

Composed by John Coltrane · Recorded 1959 · Released on Giant Steps (Atlantic SD 1311)

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About Giant Steps

Coltrane’s Atlantic Debut

Giant Steps was composed by John Coltrane and recorded in 1959 at Atlantic Studios in New York, with Tommy Flanagan on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Taylor on drums. Released in early 1960 as the title track of the album Giant Steps (Atlantic SD 1311), it was Coltrane’s first record as leader for Atlantic and arrived within weeks of the Miles Davis sessions for Kind of Blue — two of the most influential jazz records ever made, recorded almost side by side. Coltrane plays on Kind of Blue too, including its opening track So What — the piece that launched modal jazz, and a study in harmonic stillness that sits at the opposite pole from the restless changes of Giant Steps.

What makes Giant Steps extraordinary is its harmony. Coltrane built the tune on a cyclic progression that moves through three tonal centres a major third apart — B major, G major and Eb major — so the music never settles, modulating roughly every two beats. This system became known as the Coltrane changes, and it remains one of the most studied and most feared progressions in jazz.

There is a famous story attached to the original session. The pianist, Tommy Flanagan, was reading the chart for the first time, and at Coltrane’s blistering tempo he could not improvise freely over it — late in his solo he backs off to simply stating the chords. He recorded his own assured version of the tune years later. In 2004 the album was added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry for its cultural and historical significance.

What Are the Coltrane Changes?

Three Keys a Major Third Apart

Giant Steps is a 16-bar form, but it is unlike almost any standard you will have played. Instead of staying in one key, it cycles through three tonal centres spaced an equal major third apart — B major, G major and Eb major. Those three keys outline a descending augmented triad and divide the octave into three equal parts. Each centre is set up by its own ii-V or dominant, so the tune packs around 26 chords into 16 bars and modulates roughly every two beats.

How the Three Keys Connect

The link between the three keys is a single move, repeated. From each major chord, Coltrane steps up a minor third to a dominant seventh, and that dominant then resolves down a fifth into the next key, a major third below. Follow it around: Bmaj7 rises to D7, which drops to Gmaj7; Gmaj7 rises to Bb7, which drops to Ebmaj7; Ebmaj7 rises to F#7, which drops back to Bmaj7 and the loop closes. In the more open bars the same move is spelled out as a complete ii–V–I — Am7 D7 into Gmaj7, Fm7 Bb7 into Ebmaj7, C#m7 F#7 into Bmaj7.

There is a hidden symmetry that makes the tune so slippery: the three connecting dominants — D7, Bb7 and F#7 — are themselves a major third apart, an augmented triad nested inside the augmented triad of tonics. With two interlocking symmetrical cycles and no key held long enough to feel like home, the ear is left without a gravitational centre — which is exactly what gives Giant Steps its weightless, free-falling quality.

Giant Steps Chords & the Augmented Scale

The Three Cells Behind the Chords

Traditional tunes move by fourths and fifths around the cycle; Giant Steps moves by major thirds (a major-third substitution that theorists also call the three-tonic system, or the Coltrane matrix), which is what gives the harmony its restless, ladder-climbing feeling — the “giant steps” of the title. Underneath the surface, though, there are really only three building blocks: the ii-V-I of B, the ii-V-I of G and the ii-V-I of Eb. The individual key centres are easy to hear on their own, but the key to developing a practical understanding of Giant Steps is internalising how the three key centres connect to each other.

To help you try to hear how the three key centres connect to each other, I recommend first studying the standard Have You Met Miss Jones. The bridge of this standard modulates through a cycle of major thirds in a more standard context, and provides a strong singable melody to which you can anchor the chord changes. Coltrane himself was reportedly interested in this harmonic progression and how it appeared in the standard repertoire.

Giant Steps was Coltrane's first foray into deploying the three-tonic system — it can be seen kind of like an etude or study. He applied the same major-third substitution to existing standards — most famously reworking the changes of Tune Up into his tune Countdown on the same album. Other compositions which deploy Coltrane Changes include 26-2 (a contrafact on Confirmation), Satellite (a line on How High the Moon) and his reimagining of Body and Soul.

Where did Coltrane's obsession with harmonic symmetry come from? Coltrane's early use of symmetrical diminished patterns in his improvisations — perhaps best demonstrated on the live recording with Thelonious Monk at Carnegie Hall (1957) — is a precursor to his interest in other symmetrical harmonic devices. Throughout the late 1950s Coltrane studied Nicolas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns (1947), a vast catalogue of lines built by moving mathematical permutations through equal intervals — the same principle of dividing the octave symmetrically that drives Giant Steps. The pianist McCoy Tyner recalled that Coltrane carried the book everywhere and practised from it daily. When you study the book yourself it is clear that the Giant Steps' major-third cycle and Coltrane’s lifelong love of diminished and augmented patterns trace directly back to it. The first chapter of the thesaurus in particular — which divides the octave into two equal parts (a tritone) — contains several patterns that can be clearly heard in Coltrane's improvisations of the late 1950s.

From Giant Steps to the Augmented Scale

Look once more at the diagram and a second pattern emerges. The three home chords — B, G and Eb — form one augmented triad; the three connecting dominants — D7, Bb7 and F#7 — form another, sitting a minor third away. Interlock those two augmented triads and you have a six-note symmetrical scale that alternates minor thirds and half steps: the augmented scale. The same equal-division logic that organises the chords of Giant Steps also produces a scale — and Coltrane drew on it more and more through the 1960s. Augmented-scale lines feature in Coltrane's later playing on pieces like One Down, One Up and Nature Boy (1965). Coltrane's extended cadenzas on his many live recordings of I Want To Talk About You showcase his ability to find pretty, harmonically complementary lines based on the augmented scale in a standard setting, many lifting their shapes straight from the Slonimsky Thesaurus.

Coltrane's discovery and application of what we now call the augmented scale was just one of his many innovations in this later period. Oliver Nelson did as much as anyone to popularise this sound: the melody in the bridge of his composition Hoe-Down on the 1961 album The Blues and the Abstract Truth showcases a classic example of the augmented scale. He also deploys a variation of this phrase during his solo on that album’s Stolen Moments. Saxophonists David Liebman and Steve Grossman were important in codifying and developing Coltrane's work with the augmented scale in their work in Elvin Jones' band after Coltrane's death. Later, Michael Brecker further developed this into core modern-jazz vocabulary. If the logic of Giant Steps appeals to you, the augmented scale is the natural next sound to explore.

How to Learn Giant Steps

A Practical Approach for Saxophonists

1. Learn the melody and hear the three keys. Before you worry about soloing, make sure you can sing the melody and the root movement unassisted. This will help you get the sound of the three tonal centres into your ear, and anchor them to the melody. First, listen to Coltrane’s 1959 recording repeatedly and sing the line and root movement along with the recording. Then try it without. Be honest with yourself — are you being accurate? Knowing where you are — in B, in G or in Eb — at any given moment in the melody / form is vital.

2. Drill the ii-V-Is in B, G and Eb. Practise the three key cells on their own, slowly, in every register of the horn. It is vital that you can control each key centre with equal fluency — as all three key centres have equal weight in the form, you must make sure the distribution of your practical skills reflect this. Make each of the three keys feel like home before you try to connect them.

3. Practise across the bar lines. You must learn to link the chords and key centres across the bar lines. Practise a constant stream of 8th notes slowly, evenly, without a metronome. Take all the time you need to link your 8th notes across the bar lines with either diatonic or chromatic passing notes as required. Do not rush through the key centre during the bar and take your time linking the bars as needed. Tracing these paths through the changes is the most important work you can do in achieving fluency across the form. Using a metronome is a hindrance in this context, give yourself all the time you need to pick the correct notes to connect the phrases. If you wish to practise your time and feel, do so separately in exercises that require less mental effort.

4. Use the pentatonic shortcut. A well-known scaffold, pointed out by Mark Levine, is that three major pentatonic scales — F#, Bb and D — cover the ii-V-Is of B, Eb and G respectively. I have found this method to be clunky and poor for developing fluency across the form, however it can be useful for finding new melodic cells / ideas to deploy on these rapidly moving changes.

5. Do not worry about tempo. Loop the form with a metronome at a slow tempo and stay there for a long time. Your goal is to feel relaxed when playing. Whatever tempo feels the most relaxed is the fastest that you can play it. Coltrane’s original runs at around 286 BPM; getting there is a long-term project, not a single practice session.

6. Explore further than Giant Steps. Investigate other uses of the Coltrane Changes and absorb melodies that outline them. Giant Steps should be seen as an etude or a practice exercise, rather than a goal in its own right. You should be aiming to play the cycle musically. Learn to sing and play the bridge of Have You Met Miss Jones, the bridge of Coltrane's version of Body and Soul. Study the elegance of Central Park West or the brooding melody of Satellite. Particularly important is 26-2 for discovering bop-style melodic devices over Coltrane Changes.

If you would like one-to-one guidance working through Giant Steps or the Coltrane changes, saxophone lessons in person in South East London or online are available, with a focus on jazz harmony, transcription study and technique. You may also find the free saxophone transcriptions useful for studying how the great players navigate difficult changes.

Essential Recordings

Where to Start Listening

The essential recording is John Coltrane (1959), the title track of the album Giant Steps on Atlantic, with Tommy Flanagan (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Art Taylor (drums). This is the performance that defined the tune and the Coltrane changes, and in 2004 it was added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. Start here and listen many times before you try to play it.

Next, seek out Tommy Flanagan’s own later recording of Giant Steps. Flanagan was the pianist who sight-read the chart at the original session and struggled at Coltrane’s tempo; his assured return to the tune years later is one of the most satisfying versions on record. For another Coltrane vehicle on this site, see the free Oleo lead sheet, which pairs Coltrane’s language with rhythm changes.

Beyond Coltrane himself, Giant Steps has become a rite of passage, recorded by countless musicians testing themselves against its changes — from big-band and guitar readings to solo-piano reinventions. Comparing how different players survive (or reshape) the harmony is one of the most instructive listening exercises in modern jazz.

If you are working through Coltrane’s music, browse the online real book index for related tunes including Naima, Mr. P.C. and Countdown — all available as free lead sheet PDFs in Concert, Bb and Eb.