The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Something I wrote out a while back - going through my old papers.

    Barry Harris summary sheet-4b315e39-a522-4529-9df6-db52444cccd4-jpgBarry Harris summary sheet-cbd913b0-3eb3-496e-9ef5-da02903479f3-jpgBarry Harris summary sheet-3fc8b926-3c80-40ca-bb69-dba02fc1b1a3-jpgBarry Harris summary sheet-02aecd9a-5d0a-4f5e-a44e-7f75348cf7bd-jpgBarry Harris summary sheet-703b0ed0-41bd-4e7d-a42b-e54bd45912f1-jpgBarry Harris summary sheet-fe41701c-80b0-4488-9d93-a87d41d35c0e-jpg

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Apologies for the orientation

    joke is this isn’t 10% of the stuff and I haven’t practiced all of it at all

  4. #3

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    A lot of this stuff is not vanilla Barry btw before I get comments haha

  5. #4

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    Maybe this will be helpful:

    Pdf - christianm77-barryharris.pdf
    Last edited by wzpgsr; 03-20-2020 at 08:49 AM.

  6. #5

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    What I could decipher looks very good

  7. #6

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    Re-oriented and brightened a little:

    Barry Harris summary sheet-6ce44584-cf72-43d2-83b8-853b50712c66-jpegBarry Harris summary sheet-b89d765b-0379-431f-a709-cc3905729891-jpegBarry Harris summary sheet-405b9751-0def-456c-99c9-630e3c0ac1b4-jpegBarry Harris summary sheet-f4880096-a0e0-49cf-8be2-87d73b838d22-jpegBarry Harris summary sheet-4c71b514-3f3f-4df4-b1b9-fd2488cc1dbf-jpegBarry Harris summary sheet-e86c8c12-67d1-4d38-9c74-332a104f0679-jpeg

  8. #7

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    Thanks for organising that fellas.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Apologies for the orientation
    Christian, we love you regardless of your orientation. ;o)

  10. #9

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    Hey Christian... nice. So I read through... brings back memories, (long time ago)

    I generally just notated out the pattern... and noted to go through the cycles and then add embellishment or expand how ever I wanted. Like warm ups, play longer versions, to help with guitar technique.

    ... you were kind of stuck in that octave thing, or did you expand when playing. These are all just exercise type of things. I thinks it's better on guitar to expand into at least two octaves.

    Is this a caged thing, I do notice that a lot of teachers teach using the results of the caged approach... single octave or more in the style of piano.

    Nice to see progressions etc.. Thanks

  11. #10

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    Lovely cursive.

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by A. Kingstone
    Lovely cursive.
    My three sisters all went to a convent school where they had to write in Italic script, special pen nib & nuns with steel rulers to whack your knuckles if it wasn't up to snuff - they all have fantastic handwriting.

    I was once called into a partner's office, told to shut the door & take a seat (both severe warning signs, I thought I was getting the sack).

    He threw a file at me, asked if it was my work & then told me I had the handwriting of a 'fucking maniac'.

    Apparently up strokes sloping in both directions means I'n nuts...

    Maybe Christian had a Christian education ?

  13. #12

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    Thanks for this!

    Handwriting: my father went to a Catholic school and has fine penmanship. Hated the school experience and sent me to public school. Being left handed, script with a #2 pencil was never going to work for me. Bottom line: I print... and do a very poor job of it too.

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by dot75
    My three sisters all went to a convent school where they had to write in Italic script, special pen nib & nuns with steel rulers to whack your knuckles if it wasn't up to snuff - they all have fantastic handwriting.

    I was once called into a partner's office, told to shut the door & take a seat (both severe warning signs, I thought I was getting the sack).

    He threw a file at me, asked if it was my work & then told me I had the handwriting of a 'fucking maniac'.

    Apparently up strokes sloping in both directions means I'n nuts...

    Maybe Christian had a Christian education ?
    Good guess!

    I did go to Catholic school, but my handwriting was execrable. I wasn't physically reprimanded for it, but I do feel tremendous amounts of shame. Good honest Catholic shame.

    So yeah, thanks for the kind words. My missus bought me a lovely proper legit music copyists fountain pen with an incredibly wide nib and I fell in love with it (not sure where it is now, will dig it out.) It actually forces you to write well. Also I remembered my lessons and actually now find it very rewarding to take time forming those letters.

    My handwriting with a ball point is indecipherable.

    Right, I'm off to spend my self isolation copying out the Book of Kells. Gonna get my Monk together....

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Hey Christian... nice. So I read through... brings back memories, (long time ago)

    I generally just notated out the pattern... and noted to go through the cycles and then add embellishment or expand how ever I wanted. Like warm ups, play longer versions, to help with guitar technique.

    ... you were kind of stuck in that octave thing, or did you expand when playing. These are all just exercise type of things. I thinks it's better on guitar to expand into at least two octaves.

    Is this a caged thing, I do notice that a lot of teachers teach using the results of the caged approach... single octave or more in the style of piano.

    Nice to see progressions etc.. Thanks
    Well it actually went the other way. I learned all of my scales as two octave plus positions about 25 years ago, and then when I started doing Barry Harris scale outlines, I was screwed. I couldn't go from scale to scale fast enough. (And Barry goes FAST in class.)

    As he says 'I can't teach you to play jazz, I can only get you ready for my next visit.'

    So I spent a good portion of 2015 learning to do everything in one octave scale positions. That sorted it. Just one octave shapes every octave, all over the neck. Best exercise I know for getting a tune together.

    In terms of playing tunes, I couldn't apply this material over more than an octave either. Chords kept on changing. Bloody things. So I think bite size chunks are best generally. Just don't get stuck practicing in one position.

    (Now I often practice my scales going from the lowest note on the guitar to the highest. Which is how Barry says you should be able to play Giant Steps. One scales, top to bottom, no stopping. I'll get to that after I've paired me socks.)

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77

    (Now I often practice my scales going from the lowest note on the guitar to the highest. Which is how Barry says you should be able to play Giant Steps. One scales, top to bottom, no stopping.
    I gather you mean continuously connecting each scale to the next. Levine calls it the "continuous scale exercise". He would have students do it from around a middle C up two and a half octaves to around a high G and back down, in continuous eighth notes, regardless of where the chord tones fall. Thru ii V I in all 12 keys. Also ii v I minor. And thru any tunes you want.

  17. #16

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    Mark Levine hosted Barry Harris in person for a three hour lecture/demonstration in 1992 at The Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley CA. It was transcribed and is 24 pages long. I have a copy.

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    I gather you mean continuously connecting each scale to the next. Levine calls it the "continuous scale exercise". He would have students do it from around a middle C up two and a half octaves to around a high G and back down, in continuous eighth notes, regardless of where the chord tones fall. Thru ii V I in all 12 keys. Also ii v I minor. And thru any tunes you want.
    Yes

  19. #18

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    I managed to convert Christian's notes into a PDF, I think this has more of the 'surface area' captured than the dropbox pdf which was posted earlier.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  20. #19

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    I admire lovely handwriting but do not have it.

    When I was in college, a philo major at the time, I was the work study student for a philo prof. One day he told me, "You're the only person on this campus whose handwriting is worse than mine!"

    When I was in seminary a priest wrote on one of my in-class (handwritten) essays: "Put down the guitar and learn how to use a pen for godsake."

    And yet he persisted...

  21. #20
    Very cool, Christian. And yes, very nice manuscript. Mine hand script is definitely not very pretty.

    What do you think about maybe sharing some specific fingerings for different things? I've read conversations on this the last year or 2 and there seems to be a mixed consensus that it's somewhat of a personal thing and that everyone has to develop their own or something.

    I understand this view to a certain degree, but any logic toward that argument breaks down for me when I look at piano or other stringed instrument pedagogy, where fingerings are laid out explicitly for the beginner and are the starting point. I would imagine that most guitarists struggle with this more on Barry Harris than any other instruments.

    With regard to fingerings, the guitarist is at more of a disadvantage than any other instrumentalist IMO. There's profoundly less fundamental pedagogy at the basic level compared to piano, and there are many more points of departure when compared to 5ths-tuned instruments. "Jazz is different anyway" and legato considerations with phrasing etc seem to be used as an argument for "figuring out on your own", but honestly, I feel like these should mostly be the opposite, as there are just very few examples.

    Anyway, I would be very interested in seeing different players' approaches, especially to Barry's half-step-rules scales. I think that the fact that everyone approaches in different ways is probably the most compelling aspect honestly. What I have arrived is very different from Ronnie Ben-Hur's, and I think yours and others are pretty different as well.

    Anyway, I don't want to derail, but it looks like it's been a couple of days anyway. May be better in another thread. Interested in your philosophical take at the very least.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    Mark Levine hosted Barry Harris in person for a three hour lecture/demonstration in 1992 at The Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley CA. It was transcribed and is 24 pages long. I have a copy.
    Any chance of posting a PDF here? Many of us would be VERY appreciative!

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    Very cool, Christian. And yes, very nice manuscript. Mine hand script is definitely not very pretty.

    What do you think about maybe sharing some specific fingerings for different things? I've read conversations on this the last year or 2 and there seems to be a mixed consensus that it's somewhat of a personal thing and that everyone has to develop their own or something.

    I understand this view to a certain degree, but any logic toward that argument breaks down for me when I look at piano or other stringed instrument pedagogy, where fingerings are laid out explicitly for the beginner and are the starting point. I would imagine that most guitarists struggle with this more on Barry Harris than any other instruments.

    With regard to fingerings, the guitarist is at more of a disadvantage than any other instrumentalist IMO. There's profoundly less fundamental pedagogy at the basic level compared to piano, and there are many more points of departure when compared to 5ths-tuned instruments. "Jazz is different anyway" and legato considerations with phrasing etc seem to be used as an argument for "figuring out on your own", but honestly, I feel like these should mostly be the opposite, as there are just very few examples.

    Anyway, I would be very interested in seeing different players' approaches, especially to Barry's half-step-rules scales. I think that the fact that everyone approaches in different ways is probably the most compelling aspect honestly. What I have arrived is very different from Ronnie Ben-Hur's, and I think yours and others are pretty different as well.

    Anyway, I don't want to derail, but it looks like it's been a couple of days anyway. May be better in another thread. Interested in your philosophical take at the very least.
    i have a worked out way of fingering things that I can also teach, but it may not be compatible with your right hand. Both hands go together. (They do in any style of picking, but alt pickers are in denial.)

    so, for me, because of the way I pick, it’s easiest to put an even number of notes on a string when descending. As I normally play these scales descending, the fingerings kind of take care of or suggest themselves. so, in the case of one added note 4 notes a string works well.

    (In this situation, you would happen see me doing pure alternate picking, but that’s not how I’m thinking of it.)

    In fact they are much easier than conventional seven note scales.*

    I tend to use all four fingers and some shifting. I don’t see why there would be a problem doing three fingers and more shifting.

    The other thing is that you rarely get a stepwise descending run that goes on longer than an octave in the wild and often a lot less, so it’s not that bad. But you can easily work out longer runs this way.

    * if I don’t slur any of the notes. Slurring is a separate consideration, but I don’t tend to apply the off beat to beat slurring rule religiously, so my slurred left hand fingerings look basically the same. I may change this at some point, who knows.

    Slurs are also handy for getting you out of trouble if you have trouble with odd numbers of note a strings on descending figures.
    Last edited by christianm77; 03-23-2020 at 04:04 PM.

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Well it actually went the other way. I learned all of my scales as two octave plus positions about 25 years ago, and then when I started doing Barry Harris scale outlines, I was screwed. I couldn't go from scale to scale fast enough. (And Barry goes FAST in class.)
    I get this. Learning to see scales--anywhere---as one-octave blocks came later for me and was much harder. But it's exactly what one needs when chords change every 2 or 4 beats. I remember watching that "Things I Learned From Barry Harris" video where the guy was just doing the scales for a simple blues and I thought, "Damn, this is harder than it should be!" It's not really that hard but it is very different than thinking of one scale in 5 or 7 positions along the fingerboard. It's the quick switching that takes getting used to. For me, anyway.

  25. #24

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    A wealth of info here, with some nice references to Hal Galper, and rightfully so.

    thx greatly

  26. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Well it actually went the other way. I learned all of my scales as two octave plus positions about 25 years ago, and then when I started doing Barry Harris scale outlines, I was screwed. I couldn't go from scale to scale fast enough. (And Barry goes FAST in class.)

    As he says 'I can't teach you to play jazz, I can only get you ready for my next visit.'

    So I spent a good portion of 2015 learning to do everything in one octave scale positions. That sorted it. Just one octave shapes every octave, all over the neck. Best exercise I know for getting a tune together.

    In terms of playing tunes, I couldn't apply this material over more than an octave either. Chords kept on changing. Bloody things. So I think bite size chunks are best generally. Just don't get stuck practicing in one position.

    (Now I often practice my scales going from the lowest note on the guitar to the highest. Which is how Barry says you should be able to play Giant Steps. One scales, top to bottom, no stopping. I'll get to that after I've paired me socks.)
    I kind of see it as both at this point. I've done a lot of octave work the last few months, a lot of Barry Harris stuff. Basically, I view the two- octave patterns as the organizational structure, the PHYSICAL reference. The one-octave patterns are more musical applications.

    Basically, I have found that for most things, I can't play them until I can play them, which also means that I can't play them until I can hear them as well. When things get to be more of a stretch for me in terms of abilities/hearing / playing ability/ reading, the physical reference level really helps me.

    A good example for me recently, has been working on BH's triad scales on dominants. In which youapproach each triad by halfstep. This threw my ears for a pretty big loop when cycling through keys. That halfstep approach just tells my ears/fingers major seven/tonic major. The physical reference level really helped with shedding those thorough key cycles in seven positions, training my readers art the same time.

    But it's a pretty specific perspective on fretboard with the second finger reference ...and pretty different from my original learning of two-octave patterns on the fretboard. The two-octave physical reference to that second finger is my fallback when things get a lot more difficult with accidentals , keys , things that are harder to hear etc. I View that layer a lot like the black keys on the keyboard, as physical, concrete markers. I'm sure eventually, the whole thing becomes the same.

    TLDR: I would wonder that there might be a simpler explanation for what you're describing ... that practicing two-octave patterns isn't necessarily the easiest way to learn one- octave scales. :-)

    Anyway, I would think that just about anyone would have to shed those one octave patterns separately, especially once you start adding 3 half steps I etc.