Bart Howard
Fly Me to the Moon chords
Fly Me to the Moon by Bart Howard is an intermediate song in C, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 8 chords (Am7, Dm7, G7, Cmaj7, Fmaj7, Bm7b5, E7, A7) across 4 sections: A1 → A2 → B → A3. 6 of the 8 shapes are open chords and Bm7b5 is the one that needs a barre. It sits at roughly 120 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: Fmaj7 → Bm7b5, 3 times.
- Difficulty
- Intermediateno barre needed
- Key
- Cwith no capo
- Tempo
- 120BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 86 open, 2 with a barre
- Sections
- 4each with its own progression
Chords in Fly Me to the Moon
Frets read low E to high E, x means leave that string out.
Chord sheet
One chord per bar, four beats to the bar: the shape lands on beat one and the dots mark the beats after it, so you can see where the change falls without any lyrics. Where a section has no strumming pattern written, play one chord per bar. Tap a bar to hear it.
Lyrics are not reproduced for this song: they are still in copyright and this site has no licence to publish them. The chords, structure, strumming and sing-along timing are all here. Songs whose words are public domain →
A1♩=120
A2♩=120
B♩=120
A3♩=120
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Fly Me to the Moon
Fly Me to the Moon is a waltz in C, and the first thing to fix is the feel: count one, two, three and put the chord on beat one with two light comping strokes after it. The A section is a descending pattern repeated — Am7, Dm7, G7, Cmaj7 walking down by fifths, then Fmaj7, Bm7b5 and E7 falling back to Am7. Once you hear that descent you stop reading a chart and start hearing the tune.
Two shapes do most of the work. Am7 sits at fret 5 on the low E string and Dm7 sits at fret 5 on the A string, so one four-note fingering moves between them by dropping a single finger. For Bm7b5 use the middle four strings and leave the root out; the E7 beside it supplies the bass note. The B section simply recycles the same ii-V but resolves to Cmaj7 instead of the minor chord.
Loop Am7, Dm7, G7 and Cmaj7 at 90 BPM in three until it is automatic, then add the second half of the line and the B section, listening for how E7 in the last bar pushes you back to the top. Count one-two-three out loud so the waltz never turns into a march. Add the melody only after the left hand stops thinking.
How to practise Fly Me to the Moon
Four steps computed from this sheet: the order the shapes are easiest to learn in, the changes that really occur in the progressions above, where each chord turns up, and the tempo ladder up to the recorded speed.
Learn the shapes easiest first
Am7 (x-0-2-0-1-0, beginner) → G7 (3-2-0-0-0-1, beginner) → Cmaj7 (x-3-2-0-0-0, beginner) → E7 (0-2-0-1-0-0, beginner) → A7 (x-0-2-0-2-0, beginner) → Dm7 (x-x-0-2-1-1, intermediate, needs a barre) → Fmaj7 (1-3-2-2-1-1, intermediate, needs a barre) → Bm7b5 (x-2-3-2-3-x, advanced)
6 of the 8 shapes are open chords, so start there and leave Bm7b5 until the others change cleanly.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
Dm7 → G75×G7 → Cmaj75×Am7 → Dm73×Bm7b5 → E73×
These counts come from the progressions on this page, so they are the changes you will actually play, not a generic list of pairs to practise.
Know where each chord turns up
- Am7A1, A2, A3
- Dm7every section
- G7every section
- Cmaj7every section
- Fmaj7A1, A2, A3
- Bm7b5A1, A2, A3
- E7every section
- A7A2, B
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 72 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 72 → 90 → 108 → 120 BPM. The recorded feel is around 120 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 108 for longer than feels necessary.
Every section here uses the same set of shapes, so there is no section to single out. Whatever you can play once, you can play all the way through.
Playing Fly Me to the Moon with a capo
This sheet needs no capo. Each card shows what you would finger at that capo position so the song still sounds exactly as written. Useful when the shapes above are awkward, or when you want to sing it higher without learning new chords.
No capoas written
Am7 Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 Fmaj7 Bm7b5 E7 A7
6 of 8 stay open
Fret 2
Gm7 Cm7 F7 Bbmaj7 Ebmaj7 Am7b5 D7 G7
3 of 8 stay open
Fret 5
Em7 Am7 D7 Gmaj7 Cmaj7 F#m7b5 B7 E7
8 of 8 stay open
Fret 7
Dm7 Gm7 C7 Fmaj7 Bbmaj7 Em7b5 A7 D7
4 of 8 stay open
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If Fly Me to the Moon clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More intermediate songs to learn after this one: Hotel California, Hey Jude, Wish You Were Here, The Weight.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Fly Me to the Moon turns up across all 80 songs on this site, and what it most often moves to next. The counts come from the sheet library itself, not from theory.
10bars of this chord across the songbook
3songs use this shape
Most often followed by Dm7, 4×.
29bars of this chord across the songbook
6songs use this shape
Most often followed by G7, 13×.
33bars of this chord across the songbook
13songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 11×.
9bars of this chord across the songbook
3songs use this shape
Most often followed by C7, 2×.
8bars of this chord across the songbook
3songs use this shape
Most often followed by Bb7, 3×.
3bars of this chord across the songbook
1songs use this shape
Most often followed by E7, 3×.
29bars of this chord across the songbook
9songs use this shape
Most often followed by A7, 4×.
47bars of this chord across the songbook
14songs use this shape
Most often followed by Dm7, 10×.