Official Barry Harris Thread

[rlrhett]

As far as Thomas is concerned, I don’t think he’s presenting himself as a Berry Harris, Licensed Teacherof the Barry Harris system. He is most definitely teaching his own system; one that is highly informed by Barry Harris but his own nonetheless.

His ideas of “transformations“, “linear chords“ and “summoning“ are entirely his own. I find him immensely frustrating as a teacher (although he is definitely getting better) but there’s no doubt in my mind that his application of Barry Harris’ broader theories to the guitar are borderline savant level. Most of his truly innovative material as well hidden behind a pay wall. What he post for free seems muddled and confused. It turns out he’s not nearly as muddled and confused as he seems. If you’re interested in seeing how far Barry Harris‘s theories can be taken, even if it’s not in the direction you would take them, I can recommend diving into Thomas‘s work.


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[rlrhett]

I have no idea where you got the idea that I'm attacking his ideas. I just asked a question about the meaning of the term "scale."

I didn’t think you were attacking him. I was just trying to say that if you’re confused about how his exercises and theories are applied to real music, one solution is to just listen to him play.

Yes he is a very traditional player, and it was that traditional playing that he was trying to teach. His ideas about scale of chords, brothers and sisters, half step rules, etc. were all designed to try to teach how to play in that traditional way. Of course, in the 1940s when he was young, it wasn’t traditional at all. It was cutting edge in innovation.

What is interesting to me is that his theories are applicable to music that BH himself never would have played. For example, there is a parallel a discussion going on of Thomas Echols who has a classical guitar background. He will play jazz standards and some bebop lines, but it is clear when he plays that that’s not the tradition he’s drawing from. And yet, many of Barry Harris‘s theories are applicable to his playing as well. I think those are one of the main appeals of Barry Harris. He may have been teaching 1940s bebop music but the way he conceptualized music and the way he taught it has proven to be incredibly rich and versatile for future generations.


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[Christian Miller]

40 years of guitar, and I’m still an “advanced beginner”, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Is the six-dim scale of chords “just going from inversion to diminished chords”? If you want it to be. It’s like asking if soloing over the blues is just playing the key center’s minor pentatonic. It can be, and in some hands to great effect.

That said, I’d have to ask if the person who asked has listened a lot to Barry Harris actual performances? Does it sound to you that he is just playing on-off block chords in his left hand? I think most of us understand Barry Harris‘s exercises and theories as foundations upon which you build your playing. It’s up to you to turn this theory and exercises into your music.


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I don’t think you are actually asking. But it does seem a good opportunity to ground this in some music.

he does different stuff. There’s some block chording here and classic bebop style with right hand soloing left hand comping here

But every good jazz pianist since George Shearing has mastered locked knuckle block chords. It’s part of the bag. we do the same thing on guitar to play like Wes.

This would be an example of Barry’s freer style. It’s kind of homophonic/chorale a lot of the time but the movement of the voices is much freer if you see what I mean.

Listen to the use of contrary motion and so on.

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[rlrhett]

Quick question: Did Barry ever talk about "important arpeggios" to play over tonic or major 7 chords? I don't see a reference to that in my Howard Rees book. Only the important arpeggios of the dominant 7 scale. I saw one reference suggesting he favored the arpeggios on the root and third over major 7 chords, but it was just one random comment.

[joe2758]

Quick question: Did Barry ever talk about "important arpeggios" to play over tonic or major 7 chords? I don't see a reference to that in my Howard Rees book. Only the important arpeggios of the dominant 7 scale. I saw one reference suggesting he favored the arpeggios on the root and third over major 7 chords, but it was just one random comment.

It has been a long time, but I was pretty obsessed with it. Is that like F, D, and G triads over G7?

I don't think so, I just practiced the "ABCs" for that. But, at least C and G triads on Cmaj if you consider the "6th on the 5th" principal. B triad over Cmaj doesn't seem right. Amin triad over C is "important." Just typing out loud.

My vote is C, G, and A over Cmaj. in E all you get is the 7th, but that's in the G

[Christian Miller]

Quick question: Did Barry ever talk about "important arpeggios" to play over tonic or major 7 chords? I don't see a reference to that in my Howard Rees book. Only the important arpeggios of the dominant 7 scale. I saw one reference suggesting he favored the arpeggios on the root and third over major 7 chords, but it was just one random comment.

I didn’t hear him mention it fwiw.

But all the chords and triads etc in the scale are available to create lines.


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[Strat-itis]

In Chris Parks class he said that the 3 important arpeggios are for dominant chords only.

[bako]

I’m not especially knowledgeable about all things BH but Barry did speak on that for major chords harmonically to also play the Ma6 dim scale from the 5th degree. While his emphasis for these scales was implicitly as a source of harmonic movement, it is a simple truism that anything that works harmonically has a melodic equivalent. So for Cma6, Gma6 arpeggio with F#o as a possible off chord or approach chord arpeggio.

[Goren]

The Barry Harris Companion -
A Guide to the Barry Harris Method:

The Barry Harris Companion – A Step-by-Step Guide to His Piano Teachings

(piano-centered, but it can all be played on your guitar)

[rlrhett]

Another quick question, this time about scale outlines for single-note playing:

Looking at bars 9-16 of Stella by Starlight. Most lead sheets show

Bb^7 -> E-7b5/A7 -> D-7 -> G-7/C7 -> F^7 -> G-7/C7 -> A-7b5 -> D7.


The rules, as I understand them:


1) If it functions as a ii-V, only outline the V
2) if it functions as a minor ii-V, outline the V of the relative major
3) major tonic, outline that major
4) If it is a temporary resolution to a relative minor ???
5) If it is a backdoor dominant/minor 4 ???
6) one bar is only up, two bars is up and down.




Applied here:


Bb^ up
C7 up
F^ up ??? (D-6 up???) no clue
C7 up
F^ up
C7 up
C-6 up??? no clue
D7 up
(or would it be D7 up/down over the A-7b5 -> D7)

How would you all BH experts outline scales over these bars and why?

Thanks!

[Christian Miller]

Another quick question, this time about scale outlines for single-note playing:

Looking at bars 9-16 of Stella by Starlight. Most lead sheets show

Bb^7 -> E-7b5/A7 -> D-7 -> G-7/C7 -> F^7 -> G-7/C7 -> A-7b5 -> D7.


The rules, as I understand them:


1) If it functions as a ii-V, only outline the V
2) if it functions as a minor ii-V, outline the V of the relative major
3) major tonic, outline that major
4) If it is a temporary resolution to a relative minor ???
5) If it is a backdoor dominant/minor 4 ???
6) one bar is only up, two bars is up and down.




Applied here:


Bb^ up
C7 up
F^ up ??? (D-6 up???) no clue
C7 up
F^ up
C7 up
C-6 up??? no clue
D7 up
(or would it be D7 up/down over the A-7b5 -> D7)

How would you all BH experts outline scales over these bars and why?

Thanks!

On E-7b5 A7, play the C7 scale down to the third of A7

Bb A G F E D C#

On A-7b5 play the F7 up and then on
D7 down to the third (F#)

F G A Bb C D Eb D C Bb A G F#

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[rlrhett]

Thanks, Christian. What about the D-7 in bar 11? D-6? Fmaj? Something else?

[Christian Miller]

Thanks, Christian. What about the D-7 in bar 11? D-6? Fmaj? Something else?

Tbh I think Barry would reject these changes to start off with haha

The Dm in bar 11 is functionally a I minor chord, not a II-7.

So therefore in this style of jazz it takes a tonic minor scale even if it says D-7 in chart. -6-dim is the default.

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[Tal_175]

Fun fact. This is also F6o scale:

On E-7b5 A7, play the C7 scale down to the third of A7

And this is Bb6o scale:

On A-7b5 play the F7 up and then on
D7 down to the third (F#)

F G A Bb C D Eb D C Bb A G F#

[Christian Miller]

Fun fact. This is also F6o scale:


And this is Bb6o scale:

Yes. I don’t know how significant that is.

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[Tal_175]

Yes. I don’t know how significant that is.

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It's an application of the 6th diminished scale in single line context. People sometimes ask if the scale is used for single lines. I think Chris Parks have episodes showing single line applications of these scales. It is also the good old harmonic minor + b7 (Phrygian dominant + #9) which is my preferred view.

[GuyBoden]

Minor 6th Diminished or..............................................

[Christian Miller]

It's an application of the 6th diminished scale in single line context. People sometimes ask if the scale is used for single lines. I think Chris Parks have episodes showing single line applications of these scales. It is also the good old harmonic minor + b7 (Phrygian dominant + #9) which is my preferred view.

This is not something I heard Barry discuss. Obviously he didn’t talk in those specific terms.

What I did hear Barry say is that we shouldn’t get stuck in harmonic minor. In lines the raised degree isn’t necessary, and it’s good to stick to the dominant scale.


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[Tal_175]

Minor 6th Diminished or..............................................

If this is in relation to my earlier post, I was talking about the major 6th diminished scale.

For example F major 6th diminished scale to outline: Emin7b5-A7 or C7-A7.
F major 6th diminished scale is also D harmonic minor + C which is an old school way of playing altered lines.

[Christian Miller]

If this is in relation to my earlier post, I was talking about the major 6th diminished scale.

For example F major 6th diminished scale to outline: Emin7b5-A7 or C7-A7.
F major 6th diminished scale is also D harmonic minor + C which is an old school way of playing altered lines.

Is it really altered if it’s in the minor key?

These chords are largely diatonic. The only chromatic note in it is the major third on the V chord which is the one added to/changed in the scale. It’s just minor stuff.

AFAIK the term ‘minor’s dominant’ was used by Barry.


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[Tal_175]

Is it really altered if it’s in the minor key?

Diatonically not altered. The terms altered chord and altered scale(s) refer to structures where 9's and 5'ths are sharp or flat. That's just a terminology that everybody uses (including you often, lol).

These chords are largely diatonic. The only chromatic note in it is the major third on the V chord which is the one added to/changed in the scale. It’s just minor stuff.

That's just another way of saying harmonic minor, isn't it?

[Christian Miller]

Diatonically not altered. The terms altered chord and altered scale(s) refer to structures where 9's and 5'ths are sharp or flat. That's just a terminology that everybody uses (including you often, lol).

Depends, honestly. As a jazz improviser, especially a guitar player, you see E7#5b9 or something, and you think 'altered'.

In fact, the proper (or at least classical) definition of altered chord is that it is a dominant that contains chromatic alterations to the prevailing key

• If we are in A minor, E7#5b9 belongs entirely to the A harmonic scale, and it is not an altered dominant.
• If we are in A major, it is an altered dominant.
• If Charlie Christian plays E13 in the key of A minor (as he is won't to do) technically that would be an altered dominant.

I don't think any jazzer would use it this way, but there's something useful to bear in mind, because I'm not sure guitarists always have a strong grip of basic diatonic key playing. A lot of bop lines on minor II-V-I's just come from the minor key. That can be obfuscated if you think too much about chord symbols.

I don't think I heard Barry used the term 'altered dominant.' He had 'minor's dominant' and if we step further out, we use the tritone, for example. Or the tritone's minor. Barry was very hot on diatonic stuff. A lot of his students prefer diatonic options on things like cycle progressions of dominant chords (maybe more than Bird himself?)

It's just a quick hack in the jazz world - oh it's an altered dominant (i.e. looks altered), play the altered scale.

That's just another way of saying harmonic minor, isn't it?

I prefer to think - harmonic minor comes from the fact that the minor has a raised seventh - or a leading tone because of the third of the V7. The leading tone is what drives a cadence into the I chord. In minor, this is usually a V7 or a VIIo7 chord, of course.

If you think about what the 'run the G7 scale down to the third of E7 etc' actually is, it's altering the leading tone to create a clear cadence into I. But we don't always have to do that, because it's not Bach. 'Getting stuck' in harmonic minor as Barry put it also limits our melodic options. The augmented second can be very non-idiomatic.

[Christian Miller]

Thing I found out yesterday - the three minor scales were developed by early 19th century theorists. So JS Bach and Mozart would have had no clue what a harmonic or melodic minor scale was. They just altered the minor key according to how the music was flowing, harmonically and melodically.

This .... makes sense.

TBH looking at jazz lines, I think it's similar. I'm not sure how helpful dividing stuff into different minor scales really is. Actually rpjazzguitar said something like this a while back. This is what's happening with Barry's approach as well.

In general the flow of 19th century theory seems to have been - add a scale. So, after a while of the b6 being very popular in major keys, the theorists said 'ooh we should have a Harmonic Major scale!'

I mean it's not a bad thing per se. Rimsky Korsakov taught the Harmonic Major scale. But it is something followed by the generations after. Add a scale. I think altering the prevailing tonality is more flexible.

[Tal_175]

Depends, honestly. As a jazz improviser, especially a guitar player, you see E7#5b9 or something, and you think 'altered'.

In fact, the proper (or at least classical) definition of altered chord is that it is a dominant that contains chromatic alterations to the prevailing key

• If we are in A minor, E7#5b9 belongs entirely to the A harmonic scale, and it is not an altered dominant.
• If we are in A major, it is an altered dominant.
• If Charlie Christian plays E13 in the key of A minor (as he is won't to do) technically that would be an altered dominant.

I don't think any jazzer would use it this way, but there's something useful to bear in mind, because I'm not sure guitarists always have a strong grip of basic diatonic key playing. A lot of bop lines on minor II-V-I's just come from the minor key. That can be obfuscated if you think too much about chord symbols.

I don't think I heard Barry used the term 'altered dominant.' He had 'minor's dominant' and if we step further out, we use the tritone, for example. Or the tritone's minor. Barry was very hot on diatonic stuff. A lot of his students prefer diatonic options on things like cycle progressions of dominant chords (maybe more than Bird himself?)

It's just a quick hack in the jazz world - oh it's an altered dominant (i.e. looks altered), play the altered scale.

I can't speak for every guitar player. To me, when I play diatonically in F and add a b9 to C7 to approach Dmin, it's abundantly apparent that the added note can be seen both diatonically (F major with C going to C#) or as a new scale D harmonic minor or even as F major6th diminished scale. I can see that visually on the fretboard just as easily as on a piano keyboard. Perhaps as a result of the importance I placed on fretboard visualization or maybe my brain is warped and fretboard is my mental keyboard.

I prefer to think - harmonic minor comes from the fact that the minor has a raised seventh - or a leading tone because of the third of the V7. The leading tone is what drives a cadence into the I chord. In minor, this is usually a V7 or a VIIo7 chord, of course.

If you think about what the 'run the G7 scale down to the third of E7 etc' actually is, it's altering the leading tone to create a clear cadence into I. But we don't always have to do that, because it's not Bach. 'Getting stuck' in harmonic minor as Barry put it also limits our melodic options. The augmented second can be very non-idiomatic.

To me it's the opposite. Running G7 scale into the third of E7 limits options. That's just a lick. You're not gonna do that on every minor ii-V chorus in chorus out. Harmonic minor + b7 provides a more generalized way of organizing line building in those contexts. I recently posted a thread about Phrygian Dominant and how prevalent its use was among especially the more traditional masters. It doesn't seem like they were getting stuck in harmonic minor to me. Are you 100% sure you know what Barry Harris meant by that?

[Christian Miller]

I can't speak for every guitar player. To me, when I play diatonically in F and add a b9 to C7 to approach Dmin, it's abundantly apparent that the added note can be seen both diatonically (F major with C going to C#) or as a new scale D harmonic minor or even as F major6th diminished scale. I can see that visually on the fretboard just as easily as on a piano keyboard. Perhaps as a result of the importance I placed on fretboard visualization or maybe my brain is warped and fretboard is my mental keyboard.

Can you say things are diatonic to the harmonic minor? Or is the harmonic minor an alteration in itself?

Anyway, I think it's fine to have your own riff on Barry, but it's not something Barry talked about, at least to my knowledge.

To me it's the opposite. Running G7 scale into the third of E7 limits options.

I don't think you've quite understood what I meant. it's up to you whether or not you use the third of the E7 or not.

You're not gonna do that on every minor ii-V chorus in chorus out. Harmonic minor + b7 provides a more generalized way of organizing line building in those contexts. I recently posted a thread about Phrygian Dominant and how prevalent its use was among especially the more traditional masters. It doesn't seem like they were getting stuck in harmonic minor to me. Are you 100% sure you know what Barry Harris meant by that?

He demonstrated how good it sounds to play the G7 scale straight into A minor and said 'don't get stuck in the harmonic minor.' You can connect into the A minor chord with a surround or one of the 5-4-3-2 phrases. If you've been working on this method, you will have lots of stuff to play in the dominant scale. (And then there's the tritone options too.)

For myself this is especially a consideration on tunes like What is This Thing Called Love where you have quite a long stretch of minor II V I. Or Caravan, for that matter. It's so easy to sound repetitious on these tunes if you go in with a harmonic minor on V7 approach.

Listen to what the real players do...

If you look at bebop lines in the wild, they are sometimes based on just the harmonic minor, but that's generally shorter lines. Sometimes they are just based on the natural minor/dominant scale. Longer lines tend to mix it up. And then, there's the tritone sub to add more spice. You tend not to get the aug 2 on direction changes within the line, and so on.

Moving away from Barry for a moment, to something I've noticed in Grant Green and Lee Morgan solos, is that they like to add that leading note (third of V7) to the minor pentatonic/blues scale in the same way. OTOH Wes has a scalar lick in his Nica's Dream solo where he has this scale-

7 b7 b6 5 4 b3 2 1 through a minor II V I
So, here the natural minor is added to the TOP of a natural minor scale giving us that classic 3-#9-b9-1-b7 thing on the V7.

So I'd think of the third of the V7 as a sort of cool dynamic note you can add into lines as you wish - or not.

More natural minor + 7, than harmonic minor + b7 in your terms (but that's not the way Barry framed it.)