The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #976

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    I bet it is the G7b5 diminished scale. Take the 4 notes of the G7b5, G B Db F plus the four notes of F#dim, A C Eb F#

    G A B C Db Eb F F# G. Up (one measure) would be G A B C Db Eb F. Up and down (two measures) would be G A B C Db Eb F Eb Db C B A G. Play as eight notes and you have the chord tones on the beat, which is what all Barry’s outlines have.

    I haven’t heard him in workshops or any videos, and I’ve only taken about 15 or so of his online workshops, talk about this scale for improvising, but he does talk about this scale a good amount in chord playing. That is what leads me to believe this is what he might say. But don’t hold me to this

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #977

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    Tritone’s minor?

  4. #978

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    G a b c# d e f

  5. #979

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    Like many people probably, when I started working on the half step rules I had to map out the different possibilities to get a better sense of the sequences. The first chart here shows the standard rules for dominant descending scales over an 8 note sequence, starting on each note in turn. So it's like a bar of eighth notes with downbeats highlighted in green. Final column is downbeat of next bar with landing note always a chord tone. One small point to note is that the rule for starting on the 7th is usually said to be as 1 or 3 half steps, but in fact over just 8 notes you can't get to the third half step (7,#7,1) unless you extend down the octave into the next bar, so it's really just 1 or 2 half steps.

    So then the pattern nerd in me started looking at the sequences for a shortcut way to remember them and I came up with the following.

    If the 1 (Root) is on a downbeat you MUST follow it by the #7 half step.
    If the 3rd and/or 2nd is on a downbeat you CAN (optional) follow either/both by the half step below.

    The resulting sequences are mapped in the second chart.

    For me, the advantage of these rules is that they are dynamic, i.e you can implement them or not purely based on a particular note you arrive at in a line, rather than being determined by where the line started several notes earlier. You don't have to remember whether the starting note is odd or even, and there are no extra rules for starting on upbeats, incorporating triplets etc. In fact you can do whatever you want earlier in the line, even including rests. They seem to me to be based more intuitively on feeling the downbeats, rather than some abstract counting process. Also, the decision notes (R,2,3) are all next to each other, so visually it's quite easy to see when you're approaching that critical area.
    They also generate not only all the original sequences, but a few more possibilities that the original rules do not - specifically the half step below a 3rd without a corresponding half step below the 2nd, which seem perfectly acceptable variations. The only blip is a couple of runs from the root and 2nd that end on the second (shown in red) rather than a chord tone, but I figure I can live with that - it's not an exact science.

    I haven't looked at the major half step rules yet.

    Official Barry Harris Thread-halfsteps-jpg

  6. #980

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    If the 1 (Root) is on a downbeat you MUST follow it by the #7 half step.
    If the 3rd and/or 2nd is on a downbeat you CAN (optional) follow either/both by the half step below...
    ...
    the decision notes (R,2,3) are all next to each other, so visually it's quite easy to see


    Nice! Thank you for pointing this out.


  7. #981

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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Neverisky


    Nice! Thank you for pointing this out.

    Also, if you choose the b2 option after the 2 on a downbeat, that will ALWAYS be followed by the 1,#7, 7 sequence. i.e there will then always be those 5 semitones in a row.

  8. #982

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    Thank you! I greatly appreciate your sharing your efforts on BH's 1/2 step rules as I've been spending considerable time exploring them lately.

    I wonder though if this phrase is quite accurate as stated? "...If the 3rd and/or 2nd is on a downbeat you CAN (optional) follow either/both by the half step below".

    Maybe I'm not interpreting it quite right but it seems that if the 3rd is a downbeat and you choose to insert a half-step between the 3rd and the 2nd on your way down, then aren't you also required (i.e., not optional) to insert another half step between the 2nd and root (i.e., because you've now placed the 2nd on a downbeat... and if you just decide to go directly to the root without that non-optional additional half-step, then the root will be on an upbeat)?

    Given that the whole goal is to get those dominant scale guide tones (R,3,5,b7) onto the downbeats. might this approach work:

    Add an odd number of half-steps once a guide tone falls on a downbeat. Otherwise, add an even number of half-steps
    (i.e., to get/keep those guide tones back onto those downbeats). Note: zero is an even number.

    Is there something amiss with this simplified statement?

  9. #983

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    Quote Originally Posted by OneWatt

    Maybe I'm not interpreting it quite right but it seems that if the 3rd is a downbeat and you choose to insert a half-step between the 3rd and the 2nd on your way down, then aren't you also required (i.e., not optional) to insert another half step between the 2nd and root (i.e., because you've now placed the 2nd on a downbeat... and if you just decide to go directly to the root without that non-optional additional half-step, then the root will be on an upbeat)?

    Given that the whole goal is to get those dominant scale guide tones (R,3,5,b7) onto the downbeats. might this approach work:
    I think the main goal is to get the landing note on a chord tone, not necesarily on the intervening beats. In fact if you look at the original rules, the root does appear on an upbeat after a downbeat 2nd in a few places. There are also 3rds and 5ths that fall on upbeats in some sequences, so it's not always required. I think the rules could be whatever helps to streamline your thinking process, until you get to the stage where you can do it without thinking!.

  10. #984

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    Quote Originally Posted by OneWatt
    then aren't you also required (i.e., not optional) to insert another half step between the 2nd and root
    Optional because it depends on where you're going. Consulting the first chart, annotated with
    red, you can proceed through the upbeat 1 to a downbeat 7.



    Official Barry Harris Thread-2ondownbeat-png

  11. #985

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    Many thanks for your prompt replies... I need to cogitate further on the algebra ;-)

    Meanwhile, it seems that (having spent a good bit of time playing through the "rules") my ears and fingers are now at a point where they collaborate to put an appropriate # of half-steps in the most musical places. Since that was the original goal, so it's all good.

    On a separate but related BH topic, I am loving those chromatic scale half step rules, going up and down. They get me out of an improvisational bind time and again.

  12. #986

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    Quote Originally Posted by OneWatt
    Given that the whole goal is to get those dominant scale guide tones (R,3,5,b7) onto the downbeats. might this approach work:

    Add an odd number of half-steps once a guide tone falls on a downbeat. Otherwise, add an even number of half-steps
    (i.e., to get/keep those guide tones back onto those downbeats). Note: zero is an even number.

    Is there something amiss with this simplified statement?
    I looked at how you can get chord tones on every beat and this is what I came up with. It's perfectly possible but I can only assume that Barry didn't go with this because he didn't find empirically that players did this. (NB The term 'half step' is not always taken literally - in the case of 4 the half step is an upper neighbour tone - could be other things too.)Official Barry Harris Thread-halfsteps2-jpg

  13. #987

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    Explained simply:
    If starting on the beat on the odd numbers 3, 5, 7, or 9 for example , then none need be added.
    If starting on the beat on the even numbers 2, 4, 6, 8 ,or 10 for example, then add another note as soon as possible.

    It's very simple, two cases, like a binary balancing. It evens out any odd seven note scale.

  14. #988

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    If you start on the 9th or 10th and use the rules as written , it will flip. the dom7 chord tones will end up on the upbeats

    | D C B Bb A G F E | D C
    | E D C Bb A G F E | D C

    Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Barry is thinking about compound intervals for these rules. I’ve actually never heard him talk about compound intervals in the improv class other than to say he doesn’t think of them.

    When practicing these things through multiple octaves when you go through the root the whole thing resets.

  15. #989

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    BTW, here’s a good summary of the rules on guitar (sorry any Barry students who get triggered by the term ‘bebop scales’ lol.)


  16. #990

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    Explained simply:
    ...If starting on the beat on the odd numbers 3, 5, 7, or 9 for example , then none need be added.
    If starting on the beat on the even numbers 2, 4, 6, 8 ,or 10 for example, then add another note as soon as possible.
    Not quite sure I follow... inasmuch as the 9th is the 2nd, isn't 9 an even number?
    ... and the 10th is a 3rd, hence odd?

    ;-)

  17. #991

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    Quote Originally Posted by OneWatt
    Not quite sure I follow... inasmuch as the 9th is the 2nd, isn't 9 an even number?
    ... and the 10th is a 3rd, hence odd?

    ;-)
    No, not so in the linear architecture of the major scale. Test it and you will see.

    As C said
    "When practicing these things through multiple octaves when you go through the root the whole thing resets."

  18. #992

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    Quote Originally Posted by bleakanddivine
    I think the main goal is to get the landing note on a chord tone, not necesarily on the intervening beats.
    So here's something which I haven't really got my head around. According to generally accepted wisdom, and explicitly in the Roni Ben Hur book "The reasoning behind the rules is to have you play a phrase that will end with a strong note (a chord tone) on the downbeat."

    But, if we consider that more often than not a G7 phrase is going to resolve to a C chord (CM7 as tonic, or possibly C7 in a cycle) or an Am if being used over a Bm7b5 E7, or move to an F7 in a descending pattern like Dm G7 Cm F7. When we look at the landing notes on the first downbeat of the next bar that the rules give us, we find that not many are actually chord tones.
    From this chart we can see that when moving to a C chord, only 6/13 of the possible landing notes are chord tones (in black) - less than half. Going to Am or F7, only 3/13 are chord tones - less than a quarter. So over a I Dm G7 I CM7 / I following the rules only gives you a chord tone on the first beat of CM7 in less than half the possible scenarios. In other words you'd be just as likely to land on a chord tone by playing sequences of notes without the rules.

    Official Barry Harris Thread-halfsteps3-jpg

  19. #993

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    Quote Originally Posted by bleakanddivine
    So here's something which I haven't really got my head around. According to generally accepted wisdom, and explicitly in the Roni Ben Hur book "The reasoning behind the rules is to have you play a phrase that will end with a strong note (a chord tone) on the downbeat."

    But, if we consider that more often than not a G7 phrase is going to resolve to a C chord (CM7 as tonic, or possibly C7 in a cycle) or an Am if being used over a Bm7b5 E7, or move to an F7 in a descending pattern like Dm G7 Cm F7. When we look at the landing notes on the first downbeat of the next bar that the rules give us, we find that not many are actually chord tones.
    From this chart we can see that when moving to a C chord, only 6/13 of the possible landing notes are chord tones (in black) - less than half. Going to Am or F7, only 3/13 are chord tones - less than a quarter. So over a I Dm G7 I CM7 / I following the rules only gives you a chord tone on the first beat of CM7 in less than half the possible scenarios. In other words you'd be just as likely to land on a chord tone by playing sequences of notes without the rules.

    Official Barry Harris Thread-halfsteps3-jpg
    Learning to connect chords is a separate thing

  20. #994

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Learning to connect chords is a separate thing
    I’ve wondered about this as well. I’ve been using Barry’s half-step rules over ii-Vs or just iis or just Vs while playing standards at really slow tempos (yes, yes, I’m doing Howard Roberts’s Superchops again) and frequently when it’s time to cross the bar to the I chord I will have to make some real-time decisions about how to resolve. Depending on which beat and which interval you start the descending scale from, you may have to break out of the “rule” by playing an enclosure or using some other device to resolve on a chord tone of the I.

    What does Barry say?

  21. #995

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    Quote Originally Posted by wzpgsr
    I’ve wondered about this as well. I’ve been using Barry’s half-step rules over ii-Vs or just iis or just Vs while playing standards at really slow tempos (yes, yes, I’m doing Howard Roberts’s Superchops again) and frequently when it’s time to cross the bar to the I chord I will have to make some real-time decisions about how to resolve. Depending on which beat and which interval you start the descending scale from, you may have to break out of the “rule” by playing an enclosure or using some other device to resolve on a chord tone of the I.

    What does Barry say?
    Start by using the diminished chord related to the dominant chords for example Bo7 on G7. It’s straightforward as if you are using the added note rules you’ll come out onto a diminished chord tone on the beat (and if you are headed to 1 just raise it by a half step.)

    Connect to a target chord tone. Don’t overdo it. just one is fine. Let the dominant be the most important thing, but you could try one of the 5 4 3 2 phases to polish it off. (Or you could use those phrases without the diminished.))

    That will get you startedz

  22. #996

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Start by using the diminished chord. It’s straightforward as if you are using the added note rules you’ll most likely come out onto a diminished chord tone (and if you are headed to 1 just raise it by a half step.)

    Connect to the target chord. Don’t overdo it. Let the dominant be the most important thing, but you could try one of the 5 4 3 2 phases
    This would be a diminished built from the dominant and another dominant a half-step above, is that right? So if my I chord is A, the V is E7, and the diminished is built from E7 and F7?

  23. #997

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    Quote Originally Posted by wzpgsr
    This would be a diminished built from the dominant and another dominant a half-step above, is that right? So if my I chord is A, the V is E7, and the diminished is built from E7 and F7?
    Bingo

  24. #998

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Start by using the diminished chord related to the dominant chords for example Bo7 on G7. It’s straightforward as if you are using the added note rules you’ll come out onto a diminished chord tone on the beat (and if you are headed to 1 just raise it by a half step.)
    Aren't you just saying that the target note (downbeat of second bar) is going to be a note of the diminished chord - #1(if you do the suggested raise from 1), 3 ,5 or 7, (G>Ab,B,D,F) but those are still not chord tones of the target chord for the second bar.??

  25. #999

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    Quote Originally Posted by bleakanddivine
    Aren't you just saying that the target note (downbeat of second bar) is going to be a note of the diminished chord - #1(if you do the suggested raise from 1), 3 ,5 or 7, (G>Ab,B,D,F) but those are still not chord tones of the target chord for the second bar.??
    You connect the dim7 chord to a chord tone of whatever chord it is you are heading to. Semitones and tones are best. You don’t have to use a dim7, but it always sounds good.

    B A G F# F Ab B D | C
    G F# F E D F Ab B | C

    You could also use an enclosure.

    G F# F E D F D D# | E

    Or a tritone sub.

    G F# F E F Ab Cb Db | C

    This would be a lot easier to demonstrate with an actual musical example I expect, but I haven’t got much chance of doing that atm (guitar time very limited for me atm.)
    Last edited by christianm77; 12-24-2020 at 06:40 AM.

  26. #1000

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    Another thing you could do, is simply change the rules for each chord. So you use the rules for a scale on G7 and change to the rules for a C, say. According to Barry you should be able to do this through Giant Steps lol.

    It will always work out.

    Here’s an example with the simplest rule. In the first bar we use the rule for G7, in the second, for C

    G F# F E D C B A | G F E D C etc

    Here’s another
    D C B A G F# F E | D C B A G

    Notice in the second example I start on D so I don’t add in an extra note

    In practice these things are a bit vanilla. It’s a lot cooler to bring in the tritone sub. So two beats of G7, two of Db7 and into C. We are taking the first note of each half bar and the scale we are using to work out the half step rules.


    G F# F E Eb Db Cb Bb | A Ab G F E

    And so on

    in practice this is more an exercise than good line building but it’s a good thing to work on, because you want to be able to lay scales through multiple changes. For example in the last example Id probably stick a 3 phrase into finish it off.

    A Ab G F E G B D

    But whatever you do, it’s important to practice stepwise connection from one chord/scale to the next.

    Really the dominant is the main thing to focus on. ‘Let the dominant dominate.’