"How Deep Is the Ocean?" — Irving Berlin's 1932 ballad — is one of those tunes where the chord changes can sound rich and beguiling under the melody but turn slippery the moment you try to solo over them. Berlin's harmony moves through minor-key terrain that doesn't sit on one chord long enough to coast on a single scale, and modern players have layered substitutions on top — the well-known Jim Hall changes and the Bill Evans changes — that make it richer still.
Guide tone lines are the technique most instructors reach for when they're teaching the tune. Done right, they let you state the harmony of the song with one melodic line — no comping, no chord forms, just two voices: the singer's melody on top and yours underneath, walking through the changes a step at a time.
What a guide tone line actually is
Strip a chord down to its two most identity-defining notes — the third and the seventh — and you have its guide tones. On a m7 chord, those are the minor third and minor seventh; on a dominant 7th, the major third and minor seventh; on a major 7th, the major third and major seventh. Voice-lead those two notes smoothly from chord to chord — small intervals, half-steps where you can — and the result is a single melodic line that implies every change underneath it.
That's it. The concept is small. The application is endless, which is why so many of our master classes use guide tones as a foundation for both single-note improvising and chord-melody arranging.
Why "How Deep Is the Ocean" rewards this approach
The A section moves through a circular series of ii-V resolutions, and the bridge takes the harmony through a parallel-key shift. Without an anchor, an improviser hopping between scales can sound disconnected from the tune. A well-shaped guide tone line solves that problem in one stroke: each note you play is justified by the chord underneath it, and the line itself moves so slowly that the listener hears the changes even if the rhythm section drops out.
Steve Herberman and John Stowell make this explicit in Soloing Strategies to "How Deep Is the Ocean" and Beyond. The class compares Berlin's original changes against the Jim Hall and Bill Evans variants, then builds chord-solos and single-note ideas directly from guide tone architecture. The PDFs and Soundslice etudes in the course include a written Herberman etude on the tune and a separate worksheet on Jim Hall's changes.
Going deeper on the technique itself
If guide tones are new to you, two of our master classes treat the concept head-on:
- Sid Jacobs' Guide Tones for Jazz Lines, Comping and Chord Melody walks through the connection between guide tones, bebop lines, and chord-melody voicings — including the Bach/Parker parallels Sid is known for.
- Howard Alden's Guide Tone Lines demonstrates the technique on "Stella By Starlight" — a tune with similar harmonic density to "How Deep Is the Ocean" — and is a good place to hear what a fluent guide tone line sounds like in real time.
For players who want to understand why the ii-V is so central to all of this, Randy Johnston's Back Cycle Strategies: The Link to the ii-V-I traces the progression back to its harmonic source and gives you both written lines and comping examples in two common keys.
Where to start
If "How Deep Is the Ocean" is already in your repertoire and you want guide tones specifically for this tune, start with the Herberman/Stowell course — the etudes are written out, so you can play them as written, then internalize the logic. If you're newer to the concept, work through Sid Jacobs first; the principles transfer to every standard.
And once a guide tone line is in your ear, treat it as scaffolding, not a destination. Step away from the written notes, add chromatic neighbors, displace the rhythm, leave space — and you'll find the line evolves into something that sounds less like an exercise and more like your own solo.
