How Long Has This Been Going On — Free Lead Sheet PDF (Eb, Bb, Concert)

Music by George Gershwin · Published 1927 · Melody & chords only

Not sure which to pick? Our interactive saxophone transposition chart can help. PDFs open in a new tab — right-click (or long-press on mobile) and choose “Save as” to download.

About How Long Has This Been Going On

Cut Over a Title Dispute, Rescued a Year Later

How Long Has This Been Going On was composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by his brother Ira, written in 1927 for the Broadway musical then titled Smarty, later renamed Funny Face. It was introduced during the show’s tryouts as a duet for the characters Peter and Frankie, played by Stanley Ridges and Adele Astaire, and the sheet music was published that year with Smarty still on the cover.

According to Ira Gershwin’s own account, shortly after the show opened for tryouts in Philadelphia on 11 October 1927, he received a call from the professional manager at a rival publishing house, who explained that his firm had already bought a different song with the same title and asked the Gershwins to remove theirs to avoid the clash. The song was dropped a couple of weeks later and replaced with “He Loves and She Loves,” which stayed in Funny Face for its entire Broadway run. How Long Has This Been Going On did not disappear for good, though — it resurfaced the following year in the musical Rosalie (1928), recast as a solo number and sung by Bobbe Arnst.

The chart on this page offers the melody and chords, no lyrics. If you are also studying I Got Rhythm or the other Gershwin standards on this site, it is worth remembering that this one very nearly never became a standard at all — it survived almost by accident, on the strength of a second production willing to give it another chance.

The Form & Harmony

A Wide-Eyed Melody Over Warm, Gently Moving Harmony

How Long Has This Been Going On is a 32-bar standard, most commonly played in the key of G, with a melody that captures a very specific feeling: the wide-eyed wonder of someone discovering romantic feeling for what seems like the first time. Ira Gershwin’s lyric plays on that idea directly — a question asked half in delight and half in disbelief — and George Gershwin’s tune matches it with a melody that rises and settles in a way that feels genuinely questioning rather than merely pretty.

According to Gershwin’s own early version, the tune was originally conceived as somewhat more upbeat than the way it is almost always performed today. As with several of Gershwin’s ballads, later performers have tended to treat it with more space and a slower tempo than its original theatrical context suggests, letting the harmony breathe in a way that a brisker tempo would not allow.

The harmony itself moves warmly and predictably beneath the melody, without the harmonic surprises found in some of Gershwin’s more adventurous writing — entirely appropriate for a tune whose whole character rests on melodic and emotional directness rather than complexity.

How to Play It on Saxophone

A Practical Approach to a Ballad of Wonder

1. Learn the melody's questioning, wide-eyed character. The lyric describes someone newly discovering romantic feeling, half delighted and half disbelieving. Learn the melody with that emotional shape in mind rather than treating it as a generic torch ballad.

2. Work rubato before you work in time. Practise the melody freely, shaping phrases the way a singer would, before locking it to a metronome. Ballads lose their character fast if they are drilled in strict time from the very first pass.

3. Learn the harmony underneath the melody. Practise outlining the chord changes on their own so you have solid harmonic footing before adding embellishment or improvising over the form.

4. Prioritise tone and dynamics over technique. At ballad tempo there is nowhere for a thin or unsteady tone to hide. Spend practice time on long tones, vibrato control and dynamic shading across the melody's phrases rather than on speed or technical facility.

5. Study how vocalists and horn players shape the tune. Listen to how singers like Sarah Vaughan and horn players like Louis Armstrong and Stan Getz phrase this tune, and let their sense of space and breath inform your own instrumental phrasing.

If you would like one-to-one guidance on ballad playing, tone development or building a wider jazz vocabulary, saxophone lessons in person in South East London or online are available. The free saxophone transcriptions on this site are also useful for hearing how great players navigate ballads and other standards.

Essential Recordings

Where to Start Listening

For a purely instrumental take, start with Stan Getz's recording on his album Blue Skies, a warm, unhurried tenor saxophone reading that lets the tune's melody speak entirely for itself. It is an excellent study in ballad phrasing for any saxophonist.

On the vocal side, Sarah Vaughan's recording was taken seriously enough by her label that an entire 1978 album was named after this song. Louis Armstrong and Oscar Peterson's 1957 duo recording and Anita O'Day's version from her 1957 album Anita Sings the Most both show how well this tune travels beyond the vocal repertoire it was written for.

If you are working through the broader Great American Songbook repertoire, browse the online real book index for related tunes, all available as free lead sheet PDFs in Concert, Bb and Eb. If you are also studying I Got Rhythm, comparing this tender ballad against Gershwin's more rhythmic writing is a good way to hear the range of his work.