Official Barry Harris Thread

[pamosmusic]

I’ve been deep in a Things I Learned hole.

[pamosmusic]

Alright … so I’ve been working mostly on facility with some of this stuff. Also working on putting some lines together using it.

Spent a few weeks doing short scale runs with the dominant scale (not the diminished version, just with the passing notes). Octave runs to chord tones with various passing note combinations, triplets, little things like that. That stuff is starting to come out a bit.

Moved on to the major 6 dim … doing some of the same scale run stuff. Also working on thirds, triads and chord arpeggios.

Doing some stuff to get the scale of chords stuff under my fingers too … though that’s a bit slower going.

so the question:

What are y’all working on just for getting this stuff into the music? It’s pretty organic stuff and some of it just sneaks in, but I’ve got my fingers around enough of it that I could probably be more deliberate about it in practice now.

Hit me with it.

[Bop Head]

Alright … so I’ve been working mostly on facility with some of this stuff. Also working on putting some lines together using it.

Spent a few weeks doing short scale runs with the dominant scale (not the diminished version, just with the passing notes). Octave runs to chord tones with various passing note combinations, triplets, little things like that. That stuff is starting to come out a bit.

Moved on to the major 6 dim … doing some of the same scale run stuff. Also working on thirds, triads and chord arpeggios.

Doing some stuff to get the scale of chords stuff under my fingers too … though that’s a bit slower going.

so the question:

What are y’all working on just for getting this stuff into the music? It’s pretty organic stuff and some of it just sneaks in, but I’ve got my fingers around enough of it that I could probably be more deliberate about it in practice now.

Hit me with it.

Do you do this thing where you do a longer (e.g. two meas.) scale run and take away one front note after another in the next repetition until there is only one note left and then one after another bring the front notes back in?

Like starting C dominant on one from C with three extra notes:

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

C B Bb A G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
- B Bb A G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
- - Bb A G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
- - - A G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
- - - - G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
- - - - - F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
etc. until
- - - - - - - - - - - - - A G -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - G -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - A G -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Bb A G -
etc. until back to
C B Bb A G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -


Are you aware of all the extra note rules for all possible starting notes and the reversed extra note rules when starting the descending scale on the and of one instead of on one?

Are you aware that the most often so called "half-step" rules are better called extra note rules because the inserted chromatic passing notes are not harmonically important but mainly rhythmic placeholders that could theoretically be any note? Have you therefore experimented with replacing the half-steps with other notes? Found out which notes work better and which do not?

As in

C B Bb A G F E D C

replace the passing note B

C D Bb A G F E D C

C G Bb A G F E D C

C A Bb A G F E D C

or even C Eb Bb A G F E D C

or even C Gb Bb A G F E D C

or even C Db Bb A G F E D C


or for

E Eb D Db C B Bb A G

play

E G D E C D Bb A G

etc. etc. ... endless possibilities if applied to major, minor and dominant scales ...

[Christian Miller]

Alright … so I’ve been working mostly on facility with some of this stuff. Also working on putting some lines together using it.

Spent a few weeks doing short scale runs with the dominant scale (not the diminished version, just with the passing notes). Octave runs to chord tones with various passing note combinations, triplets, little things like that. That stuff is starting to come out a bit.

Moved on to the major 6 dim … doing some of the same scale run stuff. Also working on thirds, triads and chord arpeggios.

Doing some stuff to get the scale of chords stuff under my fingers too … though that’s a bit slower going.

so the question:

What are y’all working on just for getting this stuff into the music? It’s pretty organic stuff and some of it just sneaks in, but I’ve got my fingers around enough of it that I could probably be more deliberate about it in practice now.

Hit me with it.

What do you want out of the process? It sounds like you are building lines.

the problem with YouTube is it sorts of presents this stuff out of context. Actually there's a clear structure to this info and a very specific way it was taught.

OK, so basic principles, I forget people don't always realise this.

In Barry's teaching Harmony and Improvisation were SEPARATE classes.

• The Harmony class is about chords and that's where we have the scale of chords.
• Improvisation class is about lines, and that's where have the added note rules.

There is overlap, but at the entry level you will see them seperated. This is how the material is presented in the first volume iof the Barry Harris Workshop Video (Howard Rees) for instance. If you are serious, please buy this. It's nearest thing there is to studying with Barry, now. How he taught this stuff is really important.

You don't get that from the YouTube channels, however good. (From what I've watched) TILFBH teaches the material very clearly and slowly, and that's excellent preparation, but it's not actually the class. 'I can't teach you how to play jazz, all I can do is make you ready for my next visit' as the man himself told us once. The class itself simulates the process of line construction as an improviser, putting this stuff into action at tempo.

That IS on the DVD.

The improv classes are a ROAST. Preparing for those built my chops.

According to Howard, despite the fact that they are what he's best known for (sadly, a lot of cats don't realise he was on amazing records with legends) Barry didn't start teaching the 6-dim scales until the 80s. The improvisation material represents the older aspects of his teaching since the Detroit days, then. Certainly it was always this class I got the most out of (if only because it was hard to get into see what he was dong with a bunch of pianists around him, and I'm not much of pianist anyway.)

The Roni Ben Hur 'Talk Jazz' book (which is very good) focus exclusively on the Improvisation material. It's a good course of study, and I would suggest getting it too.

So you are talking about lines? If so my advice is - ditch the scale of chords for six months to a year, it's not that important for lines really, there's some cool stuff you can do with it, but the Improv material in the Vol I DVD set is built mostly around dominant, and this is where the guts of the approach are for most of us. Focus on really owning the dominant scale. Everything else can wait...

[pamosmusic]

Hell yeah. Now we're cooking.

There's a lot here and I'll respond to it all, but it might take me a bit.

(Thank you both)

[bediles]

FWIW There's quite a bit of overlap btw the Barry improv stuff and David Baker How to Play Bebop vol 1. Found that interesting.

[Bop Head]

No DB allowed in the BH thread LOL

[pamosmusic]

What do you want out of the process? It sounds like you are building lines.

Yeah so that's a big one, obviously. I want that bebop vocab, as do we all, I guess.

But part of the reason I've been locked into that is that it kind of sprang out easily. The vocab is so in-the-ear already that it didn't really take much to start applying it.

So I need to figure out some ways to get into the chord stuff. I've been working on getting those into my fingers, but haven't really been able to figure out effective ways to practice those into tunes yet. Not sure why, though entirely possible that they're just not in my fingers yet. The half step rules and stuff were probably already in my fingers from transcribing and fiddling with bebop scales for five minutes in college. So the rules were codified a bit more, but the technical stuff was there waiting be used a bit.

Anyway ... just working on getting some order into this stuff.

[pamosmusic]

the problem with YouTube is it sorts of presents this stuff out of context. Actually there's a clear structure to this info and a very specific way it was taught.

OK, so basic principles, I forget people don't always realise this.

In Barry's teaching Harmony and Improvisation were SEPARATE classes.

• The Harmony class is about chords and that's where we have the scale of chords.
• Improvisation class is about lines, and that's where have the added note rules.

Yeah this I'm aware of (probably from you on this forum) and I'm always a little bit caveat emptor with YouTube in general. I've gotten some of the written stuff off Barry's site and found some YouTube things helpful for targeted stuff, when I just need to see a concept in action.

As for the separation. I am working on them separately-ish. The one exception is that I've been spending a bit of time working on the sixth diminished scales (major at the moment) in single-note thirds, triads, and arpeggios. Those I've found to be super useful when I'm building lines.

[pamosmusic]

There is overlap, but at the entry level you will see them seperated. This is how the material is presented in the first volume iof the Barry Harris Workshop Video (Howard Rees) for instance. If you are serious, please buy this. It's nearest thing there is to studying with Barry, now. How he taught this stuff is really important.

You don't get that from the YouTube channels, however good. (From what I've watched) TILFBH teaches the material very clearly and slowly, and that's excellent preparation, but it's not actually the class. 'I can't teach you how to play jazz, all I can do is make you ready for my next visit' as the man himself told us once. The class itself simulates the process of line construction as an improviser, putting this stuff into action at tempo.

Noted. And I don't know if I'm serious, but I will probably buy this.

[pamosmusic]

So you are talking about lines? If so my advice is - ditch the scale of chords for six months to a year, it's not that important for lines really, there's some cool stuff you can do with it, but the Improv material in the Vol I DVD set is built mostly around dominant, and this is where the guts of the approach are for most of us. Focus on really owning the dominant scale. Everything else can wait...

Wicked. Sort of where I am is that I've been doing tons of technical exercises and things like that getting the dominant stuff with the half-step rules in my fingers in various configurations while I phased out some other stuff I was practicing. Octave runs in a bunch of positions, octave runs coming off interval skips, some pivoting tricks, triplets at the beginning. Just anything I can think of to make them a bit different in various ways. Started trying to put those into lines recently but sort of running out of ideas with the dominant scale. So it sounds like the move is stick with the dominant scale and go deeper.

[pamosmusic]

So a summary:

Lines: been having a bit of success building lines with the dominant stuff. Wondering where to go next.

Chords: starting to get some things under my fingers but not sure where to start putting it to work.

Consensus on the former seems to be that I should stay with the dominant stuff as long as patience allows and check out some other material for more ideas.

On the latter … inconclusive.

[bediles]

So a summary:

Chords: starting to get some things under my fingers but not sure where to start putting it to work.

For the 6th dim stuff. In short, it's used to create movement over static chord voicings, find alternative ways to conceptualize tension tones and to create non-standard chord voicings that sound great (in a modern old fashioned kinda way). And of course it's adding V chords for each chord.

There's a whole toolkit that comes along with these scales of chords (sounds like you're already working on some of them)

3rds, 6ths, 10ths, 3 note chords, 4 note chords, different drop voicings, oblique motion with two voices, contrary motion with two voices, contrary motion filling in the chord (single note, diad, triad, shell, Sim shearing, drop 2, drop and, drop 2 and 4, double octave chord)

At least for melody harmonization, held notes or stepwise motion are the best applications and filling in btw the melody. I don't think you really use this stuff for an entire tune, more of a technique to add to your toolkit (maybe only 70%?). Also, since there's some subbing here (6th on 5th, playing maj6 over all three chord qualities) pianists are usually playing the roots of the original chords so you don't lose the plot... harder on guitar.

I seem to only be posting youtube vids lately, but this one covers a lot of the stuff in AK's book and has some application examples too:

Quite a lot of talk is that this is some holy grail or whatever. I think those people just like to smell each other's farts.

[pamosmusic]

Do you do this thing where you do a longer (e.g. two meas.) scale run and take away one front note after another in the next repetition until there is only one note left and then one after another bring the front notes back in?

Like starting C dominant on one from C with three extra notes:

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

C B Bb A G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
- B Bb A G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
- - Bb A G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
- - - A G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
- - - - G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
- - - - - F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -
etc. until
- - - - - - - - - - - - - A G -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - G -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - A G -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Bb A G -
etc. until back to
C B Bb A G F E Eb D Db C B Bb A G -

No, but this is great. I've found the half-step rules to be kind of limited in their utility for shorter scale runs, but this would be a good way of kind of organizing the way that works and making them work in that context.

Are you aware of all the extra note rules for all possible starting notes and the reversed extra note rules when starting the descending scale on the and of one instead of on one?

Yeah, I'm all good on these.

Are you aware that the most often so called "half-step" rules are better called extra note rules because the inserted chromatic passing notes are not harmonically important but mainly rhythmic placeholders that could theoretically be any note? Have you therefore experimented with replacing the half-steps with other notes? Found out which notes work better and which do not?

But not these! Beautiful. This is loads of material on its own. Very very very cool.

Thanks again!

[Petimar]

If you want to build lines, watch these

[pamosmusic]

If you want to build lines, watch these

Thanks for these. Those diminished gestures are what I’ve been finding useful about the 6 diminished stuff with line building. Not shredding through it but just seeing all those movements laid out on the fretboard has been really useful.

[stylo]

I’ve been deep in a Things I Learned hole.

Speaking of Chris Parks (Things I Learned From Barry Harris), I can strongly recommend signing up for Open Studio Pro and taking his group classes if you're serious about this music. He's a fantastic teacher and all levels are welcome. Lord knows when I started I didn't know up from down...

Not affiliated with them, just a satisfied student (customer sounds so gauche). I take 3-4 group lessons a week and it gives an ample amount of material to practice and work on. Made a ton of progress in the past six months even though my shedding has been inconsistent (life events).

[bediles]

Ask Chris about harmonizing the 6th on a ii minor 7 chord. I'm just curious what a real practitioner of the BH style would suggest.

I realize harmonic rhythm dictates the the answer but maybe he'll have several options. Haven't seen one Barry lesson that addresses this.

Cheers

[David B]

If anyone in the vicinity of London is interested in working on building lines using some BH concepts, I'm hosting a workshop with the great guitarist Ofer Landsberg on Saturday 28 October.

Ofer studied in person with Barry in NYC in the early 2000s and ran a series of workshops when he was living in London, in 2018 and 2019 along the lines of Barry's classes. I also studied with him privately during that period and his approach is very much Barry's.

There is a charge, in order to pay the musicians and cover room hire. Details and booking at: Building bebop lines with Ofer Landsberg at Oliver's Jazz Bar event tickets from TicketSource

[Bop Head]

Some thoughts about Barry Harris' teachings:

• Rather rarely talked about: The general considerations regarding what happens when you change one or two notes in a diminished seventh chord: from the diminished chord to a dominant seventh chord, to a minor sixth chord, to a major sixth chord or to a dominant seventh chord with flatted fifth (and vice versa). Then, what are the possible applications of that.
• Regarding the chordal stuff: What happens when you superimpose sixth (resp. seventh) [and] diminished scales over another chord than the basic sixth or seventh chord? Things soon get less vanilla (albeit maybe not less "muddy" LOL whatever that means). Then there is IMHO a misunderstanding regarding borrowing notes from the "other" chord.
• Regarding the linear methods of adding extra notes to scales: When you analyze bebop solos and heads you will realize that chord tones are often not played on strong beats. But practicing those descending major, melodic minor and dominant scales with the extra notes according to Barry's rules gives you an intuitive understanding of what are the important chord tones and what are passing notes.

[Jbcjazz]

Just seeing who's done outlines on these tunes, any PDFs or notes? Ty

[Bop Head]

Just seeing who's done outlines on these tunes, any PDFs or notes? Ty

Which tunes? And do you mean scale outlines?

[AllanAllen]

Do you guys really use these outlines?

Someone had a PDF of an outline for All Of Me. I worked through it, but trying to use it was too much mental gymnastics. I couldn't track the chords, which scale to use, which note to adjust in the scale, think of something to play, and physically play it all at the same time. By the time I thought of which scale to use the tune was 3 chords ahead and I was lost.

[Bop Head]

Do you guys really use these outlines? Someone had a PDF of an outline for All Of Me. I worked through it, but trying to use it was too much mental gymnastics. I couldn't track the chords, which scale to use, which note to adjust in the scale, think of something to play, and physically play it all at the same time. By the time I thought of which scale to use the tune was 3 chords ahead and I was lost.

I use them all the time after having learned melody and lyrics. Seems like there is a misunderstanding on your side regarding their use. They are used for learning tunes. They put the basic arpeggios on strong beats and passing tones on ands and structure the form with 1- or 2-bar phrases. All that helps me a ton with improvisation.

EDIT: Of course you should have figured out the few basic types of outlines before you apply them to a tune. Then its only a matter of finding the starting note for the next one.

[pamosmusic]

I use them all the time after having learned melody and lyrics. Seems like there is a misunderstanding on your side regarding their use. They are used for learning tunes. They put the basic arpeggios on strong beats and passing tones on ands and structure the form with 1- or 2-bar phrases. All that helps me a ton with improvisation.

Yeah they used to confuse me a bit, but there's a specific rhythmic component and some "gestures" that you have to know (like "Bb7 to the third of G" or whatever). Without that baseline they wouldn't really make much sense. But then it's used mostly for getting the sound of a tune in your ear. And on guitar those little one-octave shapes are kind of a nice practice for streamlining the whole "okay F7 scale is Bb which is this pattern here" thought process.

Bonus: I have it on good authority that I will be in possession of the workshop dvds on Christmas (or maybe my birthday, which is thereabouts anyway).