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Alan in volume 2 of The Workshop videos.
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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09-25-2022 09:28 AM
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Tbh I have enough stuff to not practice as it is, but I may check them out at some point Originally Posted by Bop Head
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What I was mainly relating to the confidentiality agreement. AFAIK you have to sign that you will not give to anyone else the teaching materials you get. Originally Posted by Maroonblazer
And I did not know that Richie Zellon is a Banacos student*. But by “his heirs” I mean those who offer “online correspondence lessons" on charliebanacos.net — Barbara Banacos (his wife? daughter? can’t remember) and pianist Garry Dial — who made a interesting introductory teaser video**:
Do not get me wrong. It is of course OK to charge money*** for your teaching. Well, Barry had lifetime free housing guaranteed by Pannonica but he was into horse bets LOL. But he never made such a secrecy about the contents of his teachings. It is like open source software. You can charge for it but you must not patent it. He was happy that there were/are people willing to carry on the bebop flame — that’s why he was teaching.
* I think almost everybody who went to Berklee at a certain time studied privately with Banacos as well. Mike Stern and Jeff Berlin are just two famous examples. BTW I just saw that two month ago Richie Zellon started to jump on the Barry Harris train as well LOL. I had not looked into his channel for a while cause I had not found it very interesting any more — but that is my personal taste.
** Which contradicts a little the above said about secrecy but I think there is much more than the few exercises mentioned in the video. Some is mentioned in the Lefteridis Cordis dissertation on Banacos.
*** There are insane examples like Peter Farrell’s official George Benson method videos which originally cost a few hundred bucks (though his free videos most of which he took down again from YouTube were really good).
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I'm glad you found relevant information to reply to in my 4 paragraph post. Originally Posted by Bop Head
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Risking not getting your irony maybe, I try to answer seriously nonetheless: Jimmy, your post decribing your approach and learning process was totally OK. We both are learners regarding jazz at an earlier stage and those were students at one of the world’s best conservatories (and other music schools as djg pointed out). So the only thing in your post that annoyed me was that expression I found inappropriate. What else should I have commented? That’s all. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
This is the website of Frans Elsen (RIP). He was the one who posted all those La Hague workshop videos on YouTube. And he wrote two theoretical books (you like theory, don’t you?) that found Barry’s approval.
EDIT: Take care not to buy the Dutch versions of those books if you do not speak Dutch
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Well 1st, it was a joke. It's a common expression or joke to call 20 somethings kids. 2nd, I can play the exercises they were doing just fine so I dunno why they'd be by definition superior to me. At the present, I'm sure most of them are.
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This can only be in reference to Barry's online workshops during COVID. Prior to that Barry himself released no video or written material. Originally Posted by Maroonblazer
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Tbh there’s a massive surfiet of info. Even if it’s all good stuff, that’s still a problem, because I think a lot people don’t really assimilate stuff but jump from one thing to the next.
For instance, I have about ten MyMusicMaster class videos on my phone and I am nowhere near to exhausting the info in them. Lage Lund or whoever drops in the space of 5m something it takes at least six months to really learn. Everything takes such a long time to properly apply. (Maybe it’s just me.)
Even the free stuff…
I actually think it’s the biggest hurdle in contemporary jazz edu for the learner. In fact best players all seem to have found a couple of concepts and got really really good at them while doing all the other stuff that you need to do to be a jazz player that you can’t put in an online course; namely listening and playing with good players as much as you can.
Anyway, it’s striking how hard info was to come by in Barry’s day. People didn’t want to share it.. Barry seems to have been quite unusual in this respect.
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Another thing you can’t put in an online course (you can only give hints) is learning tunes. I think that was also an important aspect of the BH vocal classes — to have the songs really down, not only the melody but also the lyrics. The lyrics do not only give sense to the song but like Bruce Forman put it so nicely you can as well use the melody as a clothesline and hang the chords like coat hangers on it — much easier to remember the changes when you really know the melody. We guitar players have the advantage of being able to play chords — sing (maybe better not in public LOL) the melody and accompany yourself with simple shell chords and you will really learn a tune. And later your improvisation will be more related to the original melody. It takes a while but I find it really embarrassing if you to have to look into the Real Book or at a mobile phone app to play Autumn Leaves or All The Things You Are … Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Great points. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I went to a single masterclass given by Gene Bertoncinni a few years ago—great musician, even better human being, just basically a treasure, like BH was. He said he threw together some things for a handout to give to the class. I looked down at the HO and instantly noted it would take 10 years to come to grips with this stuff.
That’s why guitarists deal in the world of grips, cause many can’t come to grips with the mountain of info music presents. I wa lucky to study with the best personal instructor in Chicago-master jazz guitarist, master classical guitarist, not many of those around. I think the best lesson he imparted was that the student hat to become his own teacher, after a certain point. That is to say, the student had to develop such a lifetime feeling of inquisitiveness and profound feeling for constant learning, that they (1) know what they want; (2) can find what they need to get what they want; (3) can organize what they need to get what they want, in a coherent, logical, ordered and meaningfully structured way.
The alternative is to be drowning in tons of information, existing in a pastiche world of acquisition without substance, empty calories begging for nutrition. What to do with it?
I always felt Vic Juris had the best quip on what to do with a master class video or a music book: find line or two key things you can incorporate into your playing, on a deep and profound level.
That’s what I want now, from going back into BH: to find a way of playing inventive chord solos that have shape, direction, depth, and flexibility. After going back to this stuff again, I quickly surmised that I dont’ really know my drop 2s and 4s. Drop 2s, yes. Triads, yes, shell votings, yes, dop 3s yes, voice leading triads to quickly create meaningful turnarounds or comping ideas or chord solos Yes.
But I don’t know my drop 2s and 4s and thus, can’t integrate the drop 2s and drop 3s, seamlessly. Like Pasquale does, at drop of a hat. That’s a big deficiency. I need to practice that, in SONGS.
I followed my teacher’s advice.
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Navdeep: Don't sweat the Drop 2&4 voicing, it's merely a suggestion, not crucial.
Work on the 6th / 6th / 6th harmonic stuff on tunes.
Alan
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The original arrangement of the head of Tadd Damerons “Lady Bird” is an interesting study of the movement that Barry Harris calls “sixth on the fifth”.
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I went through the tons of notes I had on Barry’s stuff, that includes Alan’s book, Ronnie Ben-Hurr’s various classes, and both sets of DVDs of Barry’s teachings from 25-30 years ago.
I decided to condense it down, and not focus as much on lines/half-step rules/etc.
Here’s my version of the BH Cliff Notes:
With regard to practicing Barry Harris’ concepts in songs, the following 12 chords should be understood as fundamentally related and derived from each other. They should be practiced together, played as families, so when can quickly interchange from one to another.
Cm6-Ebm6-Gbm6-Am6
B-dim7-Ddim7-Fdim7-AbDim7
Bb7-Db7-E7-G7
Rules for deriving the chords and how they are related:
1. There are only three diminished 7th chords; C, Db and D. All other variations are enharmonic to these and can be derived by moving a minor third up. C dim = Eb dim = Gb dim = A dim
2. Andy note of a dim chord moved down a half step derives a dominant 7th chord. Thus, moving the C down a half step in a C dim chord (C-Eb-Gb-A) derives a B7 chord). Thus, just as the four notes of a diminished chord are related, the four dominant 7th chords derived from moving each down a half step are related and can move up a minor third , just like a dim chord;. (B7-D7-F7-Ab7).
3. Andy note of a dim chord moved u[ half step derives a minor 6 chord. Thus, moving the C up a half step in a C dim chord (C-Eb-Gb-A) derives a Gbm6 chord). Thus, just as the four notes of a diminished chord are related, the four dominant minor 6th chords derived from moving each UP a half step are related and can move up a minor third , just like a dim chord;. (Go-6; A-6; C-6; Eb6).
Barry’s rules of playing 6th chord on the 5:
(1) if it;s a tonic Major or minor 7th chord, play it as a 6th chord; in the key of C major, play a C6;
(2) if a Major 7 chord is not a a tonic or I chord, play a 6th chord a 5th away; instead of CM7, play G6;
(3) if a minor 7th chord is not a tonic, play a major 6th chord where the m7 is generally understood to be the relative minor; e.g, Play Eb6 instead of Cm7; go up a minor 3rd from the m7 chord and play it as a Major6th chord
4) On a dominant chord, play the 6 on the 5: instead of a G7, play a Dm6; (5) on an altered dominant, play the tritone’s minor: thus, on a G7 alt, go to the tritone, Db7 and play the 6th on that 5th; i.e, Abm6. The quick shorthand on an ALT dominant, go up a half step and play a m6.
(6) always practice a 6th chord and its inversions, linking the inversions with the inversions of the related dim7 chord. Practice, for example, C6 and and 3 inversions. Between the inversions should be the DIm7 chord (Ddim, Fdim, AbDim, Bdim).
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You are of course right about major and minor (!!!) tonic chord being played as 6th chords. But that is not 6ths on the 5th yet. Originally Posted by NSJ
Originally Posted by NSJ
I understood (via Alan Kingstone’s book, Shan Verma’s videos and my own listening experience) the 6th on the 5th concept the following way:
For any major chord and it could be the tonic or subdominant key or any other major chord like e.g a Eb or Ab major chord in a C major context (which all in most modern charts would be written as major 7th chords and which you would usually interpret as a major 6th chords) if the melody allows (no clash between major 7th of that chord and a root in the melody) you can play a 6th chord on the fifth e.g. on C you can play G6 (= Em7; yields Cmaj7/9).
The advantage is that you can easily invert that chord — which applies to all of Barry’s concepts of interpreting chords as sixth chords — and you can play the corresponding 6th diminished scale chords e.g. on C alternate between G6 and Ao inversions.
Then you can alternate that 6th chord on the 5th with the closest inversion of the normal major 6th chord (e.g. on C alternate between G6 and C6) which means two notes remain the same and two notes go a whole step. Those whole steps can be filled with passing half steps which yields a diminished chromatic passing chord, e.g G6 – Go – C6 movement on a written C[maj7].
As major 6th and minor 7th chords are inversions of each other the same applies to minor 7ths chords e.g. on a Dm7 (= F6) you could alternate with Am7 (= C6) possible connected via Co.
[These things happen in Tadd Dameron’s Lady Bird posted above]
According to Barry a minor tonic must be a 6th chord (a minor major 7th would be a minor 6th with a borrowed diminished note) and can never be a minor 7th chord. That came only in later styles, probably through modal jazz and chord scale theory. Originally Posted by NSJ
+1 Originally Posted by NSJ
That’s 6th on the fifth for dominants.
Again you can play the chords of the corresponding 6th diminished scale, so on G7: D–6 + Eo resp. Ab–6 + Bbo
[Chords a tritone or also minor thirds apart always share the same corresponding diminished which makes the latter a great pivot chord between those]
+1 Originally Posted by NSJ
Practice alternating sixth chords a fourth apart with or without diminished chromatic passing chord for the Sixth on the Fifth stuff described above as well.
________
Another thing that should be mentioned is that the beboppers understood the minor seventh with the flatted fifth* as “minor with the sixth in the bass” (Barry quotes his housemate Monk for that, Dizzy talks about in an interview that I posted further above), e.g. D–7/b5 = Fm/D — so a sixth chord again.
IMHO it is much easier to think “F minor ” than “D Locrian [anything else maybe]”.
Anyway thanks, Navdeep, for taking your time trying to summarize in brief and excuse my pedantry.
* Barry long time refused to call it half-diminished but got convinced by a theoretician of the La Hague conservatory — he mentions Boudewijn [Leeuwenberg] in one of the Elsen videos IIRC — that such a thing exists. I am not enough into classical theory to comment on that.
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That's exactly what I feel. Especially in today's world. Everyone is in a hurry. Things moving fast. Tons of informations. People want quick results. And less and less people dig down deep. Most just scrape the surface... The secret is probably finding that ONE thing that's interesting for us and made that 3D thing: Dig Down Deep. For example, some time ago (a year or something) I've decided to focus on dominant (7th) chord. After that 12 months I feel I could sit in that 'dominant' world for another 5 years. With every new information internalized you have 5 more doors open to explore. Behind one of them I've found Barry Harris. It turned out that it's a universe behind the doors. And you could spend another 5 years on exploring his concepts, especially that "movement" thing as seen in Labyrinth of Limitations videos and counterpoint in voice leading. All those things are so cool and so interesting, you'll probably learn your entire life and the passion never fades out... Please accept my apologies for thinking out loud and potentially spamming this thread Originally Posted by Christian Miller
By the way, I'm listening to your album Christian and it sounds awesome. Thank you for the music.
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Thanks for listening Chris, glad you like it! The track ‘the Keeper of the Flame’ is dedicated to Barry. Originally Posted by ChrisVane
Last edited by Christian Miller; 09-29-2022 at 07:21 AM.
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Boo. The half dim ain’t a thing ;-) Originally Posted by Bop Head
Seriously, all those chords are manifestations of the same voice leading with different bass notes; the clash of the D against C in the key of C for example moving to B against D…. In counterpoint, it’s a suspension. You could say a suspension of the dominant. (Wait… who used to talk about that again?)
Modern classical theorists AFAIK talk about IV6 being a first inversion of ii-7 and IV-6 as being a first inversion ii-7b5, backwards from how Barry taught it.
I’m yet to be convinced that it’s anything more than a convention of nomenclature. (Both ii and IV predominant chords are commonly used in common practice music, as opposed to jazz where ii chords are much more common.) I would be interested to hear the argument that convinced Barry - this doesn’t strike me as an easy thing to have done haha
However, as a jazz improviser I am MUCH happier thinking in terms of minor (or dominant) chords than half dim, and I love Barry’s way of treating these chords. Changed my life it did!Last edited by Christian Miller; 09-29-2022 at 07:19 AM.
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Jens chimes in on the elegance of BH’s concept of the chromatic scale and how it can be used in lines.
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Man... quit wasting your time. Put some time into playing like Horace Silver, Hank Mobley, Blue Mitchell etc...
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I think I have stated several times before that discovering Barry’s teachings helped me to understand much better what those old cats (that I have been listening to for a long time) were doing — alongside the teachings of German guitarist Werner Pöhlert which I know since 30 years, e.g. what I call “basic bop back-cycling” Originally Posted by Reg
x 8 7 8 x x
7 x 7 8 x x
6 x 6 7 x x
x 7 6 7 x x
x 6 5 6 x x
5 x 5 6 x x
4 x 4 5 x x
etc.
BTW Reg… really dig you playing… but your explanations sometimes… overcomplicating things… IMHO…
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The reason for playing those suspensions as II–7 resp. II–7/b5 is simply the bass moving in the cycle of fifths (or rather better fourths). That is BTW one of the main topics of Werner Pöhlert’s “Basic Harmony” — bass moving either up in fourths or down a halfstep (tritone sub). (There is much more than this simple fact filling the almost 1000 pages — hundreds of examples, graphics, tabs for guitar and bass, chord grips for guitar bass and keyboard, short essays etc. Coming from self-taught bop playing originally he later studied classical and early music BTW.) Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Regarding seeing half diminished as minor a third above I am absolutely with you. The minor approach also helped me to understand Dizzy’s ’Round Midnight intro: C– on A–7/b5 (C root left out) and Eb– on D7 (a.k.a. tritone’s minor) plus of course some passing and neighbour notes — but i think I posted that before already.
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Are his books available in English somewhere? I've found a German version only on Amazon... Originally Posted by Bop Head
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No it has nothing to do with bass movement and everything to do with the movement in the voices. Looking at things from the bass (figured bass) or the root (modern theory) means you miss the unity of these progs. Originally Posted by Bop Head
It’s simply mi and Fa, as Bach said. (Why don’t people listen to Bach?) The bass line should be melodic not dictated by some idea of ii V root movement. As Barry said the great composers did not write ii to V to I.
Again look at the middle voices.Regarding seeing half diminished as minor a third above I am absolutely with you. The minor approach also helped me to understand Dizzy’s ’Round Midnight intro: C– on A–7/b5 (C root left out) and Eb– on D7 (a.k.a. tritone’s minor) plus of course some passing and neighbour notes — but i think I posted that before already.
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Could you elaborate on the middle voices please? Originally Posted by Christian Miller
'ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT : TEMPO JAZZ MEN : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
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Not sure if this will make any sense but this is a thing I was preparing on the nature of basic cadential progressions. Notice how it confirms what Barry says about them even though it starts with Renaissance counterpoint.
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