Official Barry Harris Thread

[Christian Miller]

You want an Ab on the Cm of Blue Bossa.

The melody has a Ab. You can do what you like the solos.

I doubt Barry would have reprimanded us for using the major 6th haha. But it’s interesting he didn’t.


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[Christian Miller]

It’s funny how when discussing that a musician played on a tune, discussion often pivots to what you ‘can do’ theoretically, as if this has anything to do with listening to what, say, Bird actually did.

I think you ‘can do’ this is a common framing in more modern jazz education especially that which focussed on post modal music.

I mean you ‘can’ do lots of things, but not everything will sound idiomatic. And bop is 90% idiom.

Barry’s framing was almost always - ‘do this, it sounds great.’ He taught idioms not theory a lot of the time.

I think there might be a video in this .


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[rlrhett]

It’s funny how when discussing that a musician played on a tune, discussion often pivots to what you ‘can do’ theoretically, as if this has anything to do with listening to what, say, Bird actually did.

I think you ‘can do’ this is a common framing in more modern jazz education especially that which focussed on post modal music.

I mean you ‘can’ do lots of things, but not everything will sound idiomatic. And bop is 90% idiom.

Barry’s framing was almost always - ‘do this, it sounds great.’ He taught idioms not theory a lot of the time.

I think there might be a video in this .


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I agree 100%, which is why it is quite surprising to me that there isn’t more clarity on the building lines over minor tonality. Sure, I could play a minor pentatonic half asleep and with my eyes closed, but that doesn’t give me “that sound”.

To be clear, I’m aware of the strategy of playing the lower sibling dominant and ending on the third of the dominant for a minor ii-V, but it simply isn’t clear to me what Barry Harris teaches as idiomatic to do over a tonic minor.


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[Christian Miller]

I agree 100%, which is why it is quite surprising to me that there isn’t more clarity on the building lines over minor tonality. Sure, I could play a minor pentatonic half asleep and with my eyes closed, but that doesn’t give me “that sound”.

To be clear, I’m aware of the strategy of playing the lower sibling dominant and ending on the third of the dominant for a minor ii-V, but it simply isn’t clear to me what Barry Harris teaches as idiomatic to do over a tonic minor.


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Me neither tbh, but then that might reflect the fact that there aren’t that many minor key tunes in the core bop repertoire. Of the stuff that Parker recorded, most of it is major key. So it didn’t come up in my random sampling of BH Workshops.

That said - there’s a bit more info in DVD set II. Mostly stuff on how to add notes to the harmonic minor and so on

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[pamosmusic]

Me neither tbh, but then that might reflect the fact that there aren’t that many minor key tunes in the core bop repertoire. Of the stuff that Parker recorded, most of it is major key. So it didn’t come up in my random sampling of BH Workshops.

That said - there’s a bit more info in DVD set II. Mostly stuff on how to add notes to the harmonic minor and so on

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Segment is interesting. Honestly never messed much with the solo, but the head is right out of m6-dim which is really interesting to me

[Irishmuso]

Barry’s framing was almost always - ‘do this, it sounds great.’ He taught idioms not theory a lot of the time.

I think there might be a video in this .


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Yes please Christian

[Irishmuso]

This may be a helpful introduction

Barry Harris's Sixth Diminished Scale | Cochrane Music

I realise it's many years from the above post, but having watched it I have to ask, why did Barry never simply provide a few written examples of what he wanted his students to play? Why subject them to having to try to understand what he means by his personal terminology, then be told so frequently that they 'didn't do it right'?

The harmonised 'sixth diminished scale' is very effective as a swing vehicle but it's hardly of his invention.Other teachers explain it much more clearly by providing written examples.

I love what he plays when he is playing standards, but his teaching style, well...

[PMB]

Segment is interesting. Honestly never messed much with the solo, but the head is right out of m6-dim which is really interesting to me

Yes, very interesting. Parker does play the flat 6th step (Gb) over the tonic Bb minor in Segment (and its alternate take titled Diverse) as part of a scale run, enclosure or wider voice-leading device but he more often lands on the 6th degree (G) in exposed melodic phrases (as did his early idol, Lester Young).

Here's a particularly striking example (is it one of Bird's more obscure quotes?) from Segment:




Notably, he finishes a number of phrases on that step:



...and another from Diverse:



I'm still amazed how CP could roll out such long, incredibly balanced and beautiful melodic lines as those in the last two examples at blistering tempos!

[PMB]

It's also interesting that Parker mostly treats the ii chord in the bridge as a plain minor rather than half diminished (Fm7-Bb7-Ebm) once again stressing the 6th degree against the temporary tonic minor (the 'C' of Fm against Ebm).

Incidentally, my daughter is a professional jazz singer. It was only when we were transposing the standard, Love Me or Leave Me to Bb minor for a gig that I realised Segment is basically a contrafact of that tune apart from a resolution to the relative major at the end of the 2nd 'A'.

[Christian Miller]

Segment is interesting. Honestly never messed much with the solo, but the head is right out of m6-dim which is really interesting to me

The 6th is often reserved for the last note of the phrase I notice. This is also true of that Coleman Hawkins m6-dim line Barry taught; which I should probably demonstrate if people don’t know it .

Edit: Oh PMB - jinx

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[Christian Miller]

I realise it's many years from the above post, but having watched it I have to ask, why did Barry never simply provide a few written examples of what he wanted his students to play? Why subject them to having to try to understand what he means by his personal terminology, then be told so frequently that they 'didn't do it right'?

The harmonised 'sixth diminished scale' is very effective as a swing vehicle but it's hardly of his invention.Other teachers explain it much more clearly by providing written examples.

I love what he plays when he is playing standards, but his teaching style, well...

Because then his students would have been looking at bits of paper instead of using their ears and brains to assemble modular bop lines in real time? (At 240bpm.)

Some written materials were in circulation, but Barry was about the oral tradition. That was the big thing I took away.

Barry never claimed to have invented this stuff. He’d probably have told you Chopin came up with it or something.

Honestly how Barry taught this stuff is terribly important. It’s not just another branch of jazz theory, it’s about doing, not thinking. The terminology is to be terse and specific.


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[grahambop]

You can hear Barry playing tonic minor stuff here (his solo starts about 2:30). Sounds like some min6/dim-type lines to me.

He certainly emphasises the 6th a lot (I think Charlie Christian did this too, on Swing to Bop, aka Topsy).

[Christian Miller]

It's also interesting that Parker mostly treats the ii chord in the bridge as a plain minor rather than half diminished (Fm7-Bb7-Ebm) once again stressing the 6th degree against the temporary tonic minor (the 'C' of Fm against Ebm).

Incidentally, my daughter is a professional jazz singer. It was only when we were transposing the standard, Love Me or Leave Me to Bb minor for a gig that I realised Segment is basically a contract of that tune apart from a resolution to the relative major at the end of the 2nd 'A'.

Good catch


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[grahambop]

Chris Parks did an episode on building minor lines, as you’d expect it’s based on min6/dim lines.

[pamosmusic]

Chris Parks did an episode on building minor lines, as you’d expect it’s based on min6/dim lines.

Yeah the one on Night and Tunisia was cool too, for the same reason.

[Tal_175]

I just discovered something, I thought I'd share.
This is a new application of the major sixth diminished scale that never occured to me before.

C6o = E Phrygian dominant + #9

Phrygian dominant with an added #9 is a very conventional altered dominant scale (harmonic minor with a b7 from the tonic point of view).
Turns out you can play C6o to play E7alt chord scale. More over the diminished chord of C6o becomes the diminished from the b9 of E7 as you'd want (ie F diminished).

[pamosmusic]

I just discovered something, I thought I'd share.
This is a new application of the major sixth diminished scale that never occured to me before.

C6o = E Phrygian dominant + #9

Phrygian dominant with an added #9 is a very conventional altered dominant scale (harmonic minor with a b7 from the tonic point of view).
Turns out you can play C6o to play E7alt chord scale. More over the diminished chord of C6o becomes the diminished from the b9 of E7 as you'd want (ie F diminished).

Yeah I don’t know if this is an orthodox application, but this sort of occurred to me when I was playing turnarounds. I was looking for something to play over the VI chord and just decided to play the same 6dim scale as the ii (IV) chord but with the gravity on the diminished rather than the maj6.

Super handy.

[pcjazz]

Yeah I don’t know if this is an orthodox application, but this sort of occurred to me when I was playing turnarounds. I was looking for something to play over the VI chord and just decided to play the same 6dim scale as the ii (IV) chord but with the gravity on the diminished rather than the maj6.

Super handy.

So to contextualize this, when soloing over I-VI-ii-V in C, you would play F6o over A7-Dm7 but emphasizing the notes of the E dim7 chord over A7 and the notes of the F maj6 chord over Dm7? Neat.

Edim7 : A7
E : 5
G : b7
Bb : b9
C# : 3

[Navdeep_Singh]

How to create a system for organizing the fingerboard into 4 quadrants, allowing one to play in any key, using a small three note 2nd inversion major triad played as a barre on strings 4-3-2, allowing one to apply the Barry Harris 6th diminished system in a more serviceable manner.


USING 2nd inversion major triads moving up in minor 3rds on strings 4-3-2 (D-G-B) forming a small barre, as a musical guidepost: (1) using the triads moving up in minor 3rds to serve as a shifting dominant function against the tonic ; (2) all the while weaving the scale associated with the tonic in 1, 2 or 3 note increments (e.g, CDEFGAB, CD-DE-EF-FG-GA-AB-BC, CDE-DEF-EFG, FGA, GAB, ABC, BCD) while maintaining the moving barre that denotes the shifting triads moving up in minor thirds.


Key-signature FRET POSITION


C-Eb-Gb-A open-3-6-9-12
Db-E-G-Bb 1-4-7-10
D-F-Ab-B 2-5-8-11


In the Barry Harris system, each position associated with the barre also equates with the applicable diminished chord. E.g, the barre on position 3 (with the notes F-Bb-D, or Bb major triad 2nd inversion), correlates with the F diminished 7th chord on strings 4-3-2-1. No need to shift position to find the applicable four note diminished chord from the three note triad. The positions where you form the barres give you a signpost of how you can move the barre (in minor thirds) and stay in the same key: E.g, if you have this partial barre, you know you are in business or can be in business, in any one of 4 different keys that you can interchange. Moving up a fret means you are in business in 4 other keys. Moving up another fret means you are in business in 4 final keys.

[joe2758]

Can you make a video, Navdeep?

[Navdeep_Singh]

Can you make a video, Navdeep?

Maybe this weekend, I work A LOT, but I’m off this weekend. The most simple thing to say is: work with the very simple three note barre on strings 432, keep moving it up three frets (minor 3rds). See what you get, what’s around you, where you are and when you move up in minor 3rds. In any given barre, you can play in 4 keys. The barre represents a kind of V7 to the tonic of each of the four keys.