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if you experience a scale lasting longer than 4 hours consult with a physician
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11-14-2018 05:37 PM
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wait non-americans might not get my bit. i forgot it’s weird to have medication commercials on tv. anyway it was really pretty good trust me
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If I get a scale lasting more than 4 hours I'll shellac it.
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it’s ok, scale dysfunction is something we all worry about.
Originally Posted by joe2758
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Im still working on 5 4 3 2, pivoting and the chromatic scale on dominant chords. Really trying to integrate this with the other stuff Ive been doing for years. The toughest part is not having it sound like a lick that keeps recurring, but having it flow melodically. (Insert Barry icon here)
Any experienced players want to share how they work to achieve this is very appreciated!!Last edited by Petimar; 11-22-2018 at 06:26 PM.
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Yeah, if you figure that out please let me know. The transition from running scales/half step rules/5432 phrases to actually improvising something melodic remains a step too far. I’ve been considering trying for a Skype lesson with Chris to see if he could give me some exercises that could help build that bridge. Originally Posted by Petimar
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hmm. is the question how to break out of running these things in a sequence and start using them in smaller chunks that integrate more smoothly with your default playing? sorry just dont want to be “answers the wrong question guy”
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You just got to build lines. Start of by doing it slowly, composing them, then keep changing them, extending them shrinking them in every way you can think of.
Over time this becomes more natural and faster. Improvisation is just composition in real time.
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"Learn how to play a melody before you do all them fancy embellishments." Joe "King" Oliver to Louis Armstrong
Forward motion by Hal Galper is my favorite book on jazz. The melody chapter presents a detailed interpretation of the quote above. He says that the reason many improvisors suffer from sounding like playing scales and exercises is they are playing too actively without hearing a melody. That's exactly how I feel most of the time when I try to improvise using scales and arpeggios.
Solution suggested in the book is to play "inactive" notes using "inactive" rhythm, that is chord tones with quarter or half notes. Focus on good melodies. Then, only then do "all them fancy embellishments" which in this context, non-chord tones (scales and chromatics) and use of up beats.
Applying the principle of contrapositive (I learned while studying formal logic). Playing simple melodies using long notes may not sound much like jazz improvisation.
BUT, if one can't even do that well, one certainly cannot do jazz improvisation.
Contrapositive argument brings so much clarity to my practice habits
Moreover forward motion rocks.
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I remember getting a lot out of that book - might be time to revisit. Originally Posted by Tal_175
"Learn how to play a melody before you do all them fancy embellishments." Joe "King" Oliver to Louis Armstrong
Forward motion by Hal Galper is my favorite book on jazz. The melody chapter presents a detailed interpretation of the quote above. He says that the reason many improvisors suffer from sounding like playing scales and exercises is they are playing too actively without hearing a melody. That's exactly how I feel most of the time when I try to improvise using scales and arpeggios.
Solution suggested in the book is to play "inactive" notes using "inactive" rhythm, that is chord tones with quarter or half notes. Focus on good melodies. Then, only then do "all them fancy embellishments" which in this context, non-chord tones (scales and chromatics) and use of up beats.
Applying the principle of contrapositive (I learned while studying formal logic). Playing simple melodies using long notes may not sound much like jazz improvisation.
BUT, if one can't even do that well, one certainly cannot do jazz improvisation.
Contrapositive argument brings so much clarity to my practice habits
Moreover forward motion rocks.
I teach students phrases in forward motion - it's a big deal to get them to hear AHEAD into the next chord (and the downbeat) rather than on the chord they are on.... My beef (and Hal's I suspect) with CST is that used naively it encourages students to hear up from the chord they are on rather than forward in musical time into the next chord. That's one reason why a lot of CST lines don't really swing to my ears... (OTOH Reg does do this in his playing, big time, and uses CST language to talk about what he does.)
OTOH I find Barry's system and Hal's are complimentary - like two sides of the same coin.Last edited by christianm77; 11-23-2018 at 04:10 PM.
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I admit I was assuming petimar meant how to take these “rules” and incorporate them into building lines, not how to improvise lines in general. I gather he has been playing and improvising for years, just not in this bebop idiom. But perhaps I just read into his question my own issues. What I meant by my post was:
My assumption is that if I just keep mechanically playing these exercises over and over at some point muscle memory will take over. When I think lines, these elements will simply come to the surface.
At this point, for me at least, I can run through the scales relatively easily and at tempo, I can do the 5432 exercises in several fingerings and string sets, and I can do Chris’ chromatic exercises for major (just started shedding the dominant). But none of that seems to make it into my improvising. At least not yet.
When I first got interested in Jazz, a friend explained the difference between the way I came up playing (key centered pentatonic) and Jazz as being all about arpeggios. He said early jazz was horn players in a rhythm section playing “chords”. Just like the way guitar player strum “D-G-C” to accompany a camp fire song. But they can’t strum, so they arpeggiate. He had me play the blues in “E” (like any proper guitar player would) but instead of playing an Emin pentatonic he played the “E” triad eight times, “A” four times, “E” four, etc. Then he began to build phrases around those triads, and suddenly I could hear some jazz. Then he started doing some shit I couldn’t even begin to understand, and he started sounding like Wes.
A few years later I’m still trying to figure out what that “some shit” was. I’m pretty sure BH is the answer. But this old dog is having trouble learning new tricks. I am having trouble incorporating them into improvised playing.
I am practicing going from the root to the seventh, and developing that muscle memory. But I’m not really going to do that in a musical context. From a dead stop I’m running down to an arbitrary stop using chromatic rules, but there is no musical context. From a dead stop I can find a fifth and play a 5432 phrase, but I’m not just organically ending a line with one of these, etc. BH’s system is so thorough that I am surprised there isn’t an exercise that can be offered up where these concepts are incorporated into a musical phrase or two that can be learned and practiced. Chris will constantly demonstrate these concepts in a musical line in his videos, but he doesn’t teach them.
In the end, it is probably not a question with an answer. Just shut up and shed, shed, shed. Mostly it is about sharing with others where I am in the journey. After all, not even my musician friends care one hoot about any of this. But as someone who is 100% self taught I am always thinking I’ve missed something obvious, or I’m hoping to find some tool that others are using to develop further.
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5432, half steps, chromatic scale exercises are just some of the bebop style phrase building devices. If you transcribe Charlie Parker solos and look for them (I did), you'll find these devices but like once or twice per chorus. They aren't what make Charlie Parker solos sound like bebop jazz. They just provide a melodic variety. I remember seeing in a video BH saying that using chromatic notes in jazz is like swearing, that you should use them judiciously and sparingly. Originally Posted by rlrhett
I attended BH style workshops as well as a real BH workshop. Like Christian said, the method to work on this material (as done in the workshops) is to compose lines over specific chord changes. Like I going to VI7. Then apply the composed line to the tune that has that harmonic situation. Work on the timing and phrasing the line. Continue building more lines.
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for G-7b5 C7b9
"Harris scale", ascending play: C Db Eb E F G Ab Bb
descending play : Bb Ab G F E Eb Db C
Happens to be the same notes as the Ab major bebop scale;
or same as the F minor aeolian bebop scale.
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Originally Posted by Tal_175
Thank you very much for that post, and especially that quote. Since I can’t go to workshops or even just to be with other real live players, there is the sense of missing a context to these exercises. That really helped.
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B-7 b5 E7
F E D C B A G# G
those same notes spell the C maj bebop scale
C D E F G G# A B
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i remember the swearing analgy being to blues phrases. something like “the more someone swears the less they have to say. tal, if you find the video can you share?
I remember reading in an interview pat metheny that he said things he sheds take about 6 mobths before they show up in hos playing. Since I read that I tested it, and it seems to be true! so, take heart
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Oh boy, I'd have to go though hours of videos to find it. But you might be right. May be it was about the "blue notes", somehow my recollection is that it was about the use of chromatic notes in general. If someone knows which video I'm talking about please post it. Now I'm not a 100% sure. Originally Posted by joe2758
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Page 100 in the workbook of vol.1:
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Wow, Americans say trousers sometimes? I did not know.
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Personally I am not convinced that studying the BH scales etc. will by itself get you playing bebop lines if you do not have some idea of how they should sound already. It seems like a great toolkit or roadmap to help you construct these lines on any given tune, using the most useful arps/scales etc. and mixing in the relevant devices e.g. pivots, half steps, surrounding notes etc.
But having looked through the Talk Jazz Guitar book, and Chris’ videos, I don’t know that I would be able to come up with good bebop lines (like Chris does in his videos) if I hadn’t also spent a long time studying and copying some lines and phrases from my favourite jazz players.
If you learn blues guitar, you can’t just practise pentatonic scales etc. and hope to play a decent solo. At some point you have to learn some BB King licks (or whoever). I don’t think jazz is any different.
I like the look of Barry’s system, I wish I’d known about it years ago, I think it would have sped up my ‘bebop learning process’ as it were. But I still think it is only part of the process.
Of course all this is just my opinion.
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After watching the comping videos on his channel, I can't get that sound out of my ear. I want to put this in my toolbox. So my question, how would someone who knows drop 2 and 3 chords, related to 7 chords start on this? Just learn all the voicings in the Barry Harris Harmonic method for guitar, as a first step?
So basically just start with this, then go to the next string sets when you got it
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That's how I started
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So I have been reading, and reading and ye... Isn't it funny how easy things become after you understand them. So to get like a confirmation from you, if you don't mind? That's important for me, as I respect you all.
The purpose of the whole Barry Harris dim scale harmony concept is this:
- You take a major scale, and from that scale you create a new scale by adding a b6.
- From those 8 notes, you can create 8 chords.
- 4 of them will result in C6, if we take C major as an example, with use drop2, you get 4 inversions of a C6 chord.
- The other 4 will result in a Bdim chord, with 4 inversions, just like the C6.
- Now you have 8 chords, 4 of them is home, and the other 4 is like a V chord, pulling towards home
- So whenever you are in a situation where you have a Cmaj7 chord for example, you now have 8 chords you can play on it. Whatever you think sounds beautiful. So you could move 8 drop 2 chords(or other drop voicings) as long as the song stays on that Cmaj7 chord. Much less thinking, and the result sounds wonderful. This is what the whole point is, if I am not mistaken.
- Now as a beginner I ask, hey, wtf, what about situations where there's a min7, or a min7b5, or a dominant 7? Well, there's three mores scales. They follow the exact same concept. So a minor scale will have 4 Cmin6, and the diminished stays the same. The dominant scale will have 4 C7 chords, the dim chords stays the same. The min7b5 will have 4 minor7b5 chords, the diminished stays the same. Wonderfull? So if you know drop 2 voicings for 7 chords, notice that you know a great chunk of the work already. As the three other scales have 7 chords? Woho!
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Yes, all true... but have you noticed that, for instance, Am7 and C6 are the same thing with different bass notes? And Bm7b5 and Dm6? :-) Originally Posted by znerken
So there aren't two more scales. You already know those, you just call them something different. So:
Dm7 G7 C6 becomes F6 G7 C6
Bm7b5 E7b9 Am6 becomes Dm6 E7b9 Am6
Now, none of us tend to be too interested in the 7 scale either because, you can use the m6-dim scale:
Dm6 on G7
Abm6 on G7alt
So you can do it all with two scales. Major6-dim and minor6-dim.
That's the start. What you are doing by learning these rules is getting basic old school block chords down - big band stuff, what you hear in a 40s big band when a sax section plays a melody line. George Shearing was famous for soloing in this way on the piano.
Where it starts to get interesting is where we borrow notes breaking up that basic parallel thing.... But that's further down the line. Learn yer grips and get harmonising melodies. Took me a while.
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Another thing -
Dm7 G7 C6 is all C6-dim
Bm7b5 E7b9 Am6 is all Am6-dim
So when harmonising a melody using those chord scales on a II-V-I say, just use the one scale for the whole thing. Later on, you can bring in other scales, but start simple.
For instance:
Cm7 | F7 | Bb | % |
Am7b5 | D7b9 | Gm6 | % |
Is
Bb6-dim | % | % | % |
Gm6-dim | % | %| % |
To start with.
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