Barry Harris, interesting, but...

[dasein]

"In 1997 [Pasquale] started to study with Agostino Di Giorgio (Chuck Wayne's pupil) and three years later with the legendary jazz pianist and educator Barry Harris, who became much more than a teacher. Pasquale has been for 10 years assistant to Mr. Barry Harris' workshops all over the world. "

[MarkRhodes]

An update. I have received Roni Ben-Hur's "Talk Jazz Guitar" (book/CD) and "Chordability" (DVD). The DVD plays fine but the CD that came with the book was split in two. I emailed Reni (-I bought it through his site, so he's the one who shipped it to me) and he said he was sorry and would make the files available via dropbox. (So far, that hasn't happened--perhaps he's gigging. I'm sure he'll make good.)

The book starts with what are called half-step rules for descending major and dominant scales. (There are six rules, half for when starting on chord tones, the other three for when starting on non-chord tones). Next come arpeggio inversions, beginning with triads. That's as far as I've ventured.

"Chordability" starts with drop 2 and drop 3 voicings. I knew some---but not all--of them, and part of the work here is to play them through the cycle. That should keep me busy for the rest of the month. (One chord voicing in particular is a real challenge to make and hold, let alone move to and from on the fly.)

I think both resources will get me "further on up the road."

More in due course....

[MarkRhodes]

A short Barry Harris clip on the "half-step rules."

I'm learning the half-step rules from Roni Ben-Hur's "Talk Jazz Guitar" book. There several of them--not just one or two--and it's taking me awhile to get the hang of them (-not playing the examples but incorporating the rules 'on the fly'). But I can tell they're going to add a lot to my playing and make some things much simpler conceptually.

[docbop]

My copy of the 2nd set of Barry Harris DVD's finally arrived and really digging them. I like them more then the first, because Barry is talking a bit slower in the different concepts and working with the players more. I know I will be watching these quite a few times taking notes and trying things myself. The Barry Harris stuff is starting to move from abstract concepts into things I'm playing.

[MarkRhodes]

My copy of the 2nd set of Barry Harris DVD's finally arrived and really digging them. I like them more then the first, because Barry is talking a bit slower in the different concepts and working with the players more. I know I will be watching these quite a few times taking notes and trying things myself. The Barry Harris stuff is starting to move from abstract concepts into things I'm playing.

Feel free to share whatever tidbits you think the rest of us could use... )

[docbop]

Feel free to share whatever tidbits you think the rest of us could use... )

The stuff is in Alan's book, never seen Roni's book, but imagine it's their too. It's hearing Barry talk about it and hearing people put it to use is helping come together for me.

[MarkRhodes]

By the way, Alan, how would you characterize your approach in relation to Roni Ben-Hur's in "Talk Jazz Guitar"? You're both pros, you've both worked with Barry Harris. I'm not trying to pit one of you against the other, just trying to sense the difference in how you approach things.

[A. Kingstone]

By the way, Alan, how would you characterize your approach in relation to Roni Ben-Hur's in "Talk Jazz Guitar"? You're both pros, you've both worked with Barry Harris. I'm not trying to pit one of you against the other, just trying to sense the difference in how you approach things.

I've not seen Chordability so I can't comment. The Talk Jazz outlines Barry's linear soloing approach as far as I know.


Mr. Ben Hur is a fine player and is active in New York. The comparison of he and I ends at the fact we wrote books based on Barry's teaching.

I was at a Harmony Workshop with Barry last Wednesday. I'm not sure how often Roni attends Barry's classes.

[destinytot]

(I love that song...)

Surely the scale from the IV in the key of G (i.e. C Lydian) has an F#? I'm not a big fan of chord-scales/modes, but I do see their usefulness.

On the other hand, treating that IV chord as a I6 chord opens up beautiful diminished-sixth sounds over that C Maj7.

(I've just taken a closer look/listen to Russ Columbo's 1932 vocal version and - to my ears - the #11 really sounds beautiful in the context of the song as a rhythm ballad.)

[dasein]

here are some things to consider when improvising over changes

let's reduce:

| Dm7 | G7 | Cmaj7 |

to:

| G7 | G7 | Cmaj7 |

G7 has four chords we can use on each of its chord tones:

G7
Bm7b5
Dm7
Fmaj7

G7 and Bm7b5 work no matter what other people in the band are playing

but Dm7 and Fmaj7 require some care. they both have 'C' in them, which works great over Dm7 but would want resolve down to 'B' if the rest of the band is playing G7

if we replace every 'C' with 'B' then we get:

G7
Bm7b5
Dm6
Fmaj7b5

Fmaj7b5 is a great sound over G7. Dm6 also works great, but it contains the exact same notes as Bm7b5. it works, but it's no fun to have two identical chords.

so i actually turn it into Dm(maj7). it's a way to add that melodic minor sound (ala John Stowell) and the new note (C#) is the very agreeable tritone of G.

so now we have:

G7
Bm7b5
Dm(maj7)
Fmaj7b5

speaking of tritone, we can do the same process with Db7, the tritone sub:

Db7
Fm7b5
Abm(maj7)
Cb/Bmaj7b5

easy to see why Abm(maj7) makes more sense. we get the very sensible 'G' over G7 instead of Gb/F# (the maj7 is the one note that Pat Metheny said he couldn't hear over a dominant 7)

since the Db7 "family" is the tritone of G7, it will contain all the altered tones for G7. if we rearrange the chords in each family, we can see some really convenient voice-leading possibilities:

Dm7 to Db7 to Cmaj7
Fmaj7 to Fm7b5 to Cmaj7
G7 to Abm(maj7) to Cmaj7
Bm7b5 to Bmaj7b5 to Cmaj7

those are the obvious ones, but plenty of other voice leading possibilities exist

[mr. beaumont]

Wow, there's a lot of cool sounds in the above post.

[christianm77]

Fmaj7 or Fmin7 (or 6) over G7 is more common than you think. The C doesn't need to be resolved by step - take a careful look at the second A section melody for Moose the Mooche, for example.

Use of subdominant over dominant was rife during the swing and bop eras.

[christianm77]

PS: dasein's concept is basically how I play ii V I's, but in my version I don't necessarily bother changing C to B. It works great either way. After all, if you aren't actually playing B (or C), but the band is, then the resolution is made.

If you play on your own, or with bass, then it doesn't matter.

[Sedda]

What do you guys do for chords with a dominant function (V chords)?

Is there a Barry Harris template/approach following a scale of chords like with the major6, minor7th, b7b5 chords but for dominant chords?

The major/minor 6th dim scales follow a model where a single chord is resolving into itself with the dim chord to create motion, but when I play a chord that's supposed to have a dominant function in the first place, I'm not as interested in creating motion that resolves it into itself. I want to create motion that hints at resolving toward the I chord only for extra tension.

Does this make sense? help?

[dingusmingus]

What do you guys do for chords with a dominant function (V chords)?

Is there a Barry Harris template/approach following a scale of chords like with the major6, minor7th, b7b5 chords but for dominant chords?

The major/minor 6th dim scales follow a model where a single chord is resolving into itself with the dim chord to create motion, but when I play a chord that's supposed to have a dominant function in the first place, I'm not as interested in creating motion that resolves it into itself. I want to create motion that hints at resolving toward the I chord only for extra tension.

Does this make sense? help?

As I understand it (based on my rudimentary understanding from Randy Vincent's Drop 2 book), you'd play the V of V on most notes from the mixolydian scale. So on G7, you play Eb diminished (i.e., rootless D7b9, i.e., Eb, F#, A, C) on A and C and F# (bebop scale passing tone). You'd play the A diminished on A.

To me, it doesn't really have the feeling of resolving into the G7, because it's still a dominant.

More experienced hands can chime in.

[Sedda]

So on G7, you play Eb diminished (i.e., rootless D7b9, i.e., Eb, F#, A, C) on A and C and F# (bebop scale passing tone). You'd play the A diminished on A.

Could you rephrase this? I'm not sure I got it xD

[jasonc]

I think for a resolving dominant you use the minor up a half step from the root. So for G7 you would use the Abmin6 scale. A two five in C would use the F6 scale over the Dmin7 and Abmin6 over the G7 and then the C6 scale for C.

[TheGrandWazoo]

I think for a resolving dominant you use the minor up a half step from the root. So for G7 you would use the Abmin6 scale. A two five in C would use the F6 scale over the Dmin7 and Abmin6 over the G7 and then the C6 scale for C.

Or switch to Dmin6 instead of Abmin6. The Dmin6 is just G9 while Abmin6 is just G7#5b9.

Sedda,
what helped me was thinking beyond "ii V". If I have Dm7 G7/Cmaj that's also Dm7 Dm7/G7 CMaj or Dm7 G7/ Dm7 G7 or any other mixture right? As I play the harmonized Cmaj6/dim chord inversion over those two measures I'm playing Cmj6 G7alt / Cmj6 G7alt.

What helped not just grasp but use this is to stop thinking of maj6/dim as a substitution rule and start using ut AS the rule.

So, if I want to play Just the V7 and create tension there. Well the V7 (G7) can be the minor 6 chord built off the V of V (D min6 aka G9) and also be the bVI-6 (Ab-6 aka G7#5b9). So right there I'm getting tension

next if I play the diminished chord off of the Dmin6 that's Edim or G13b5#9.

If if I play the dim chord off the Abmin6 (G7b9#5) that's (drumroll) Edim or G13b5#9

i hope this helps.

[Groyniad]

is it worth noting that for single note soloing you often want to simplify the harmony as much as possible rather than elaborating it?

this is certainly captured in barry harris's approach.

if we're accompanying or playing chordal improvisations its great to use the diminished chord-scale sounds discussed here - particularly clearly by Dasein. (and of course it can help if we want to think very very hard about our melodic improvisations)

but for single note playing barry (like joe pass for example) likes to simplify because he thinks it helps free you up. and that leads him to start talking not so much about min 6th diminished chords over a G7 (Aflat min 6 and Fm6 and all their wonderful elaborations) and more about plain old G7 and Dflat7. his big contribution here are his rules about which added passing notes (he doesn't identify them any more cleverly than that) to use when.

its all about keeping the harmony in time now. he focuses most on descending lines (not sure why - but it makes musical sense) and has simple rules for which whole-step gaps in the dominant scale to fill in with a passing note depending on which dom7 note you start on (on a down beat). its very liberating - very very good fun exploring the lines that get created - and always always very precise rhythmically.

[christianm77]

I've started work on the BH stuff seriously over the past few weeks, and it's great. Fantastic way to warm up and practice lines at the very least.

The chord stuff is great once you start getting into the borrowed diminished notes. But you need to be hot on all your inversions for drop 2 and 3 for major 6, min 6, dom7, dom7b5 and diminished 7. This is a prerequisite I would say, and can take a few months in itself. Check out the Ronnie Ben Hurr stuff... Anyone interested in harmony needs to know this stuff anyway though so it's not outre - just standard jazz guitar info I would say.

[t.vaisanen]

I made an etude for myself about 6th diminished scale and i thought that somebody here might be interested so...

[christianm77]

Question!

I've been working on Air Mail Special the other day, and as I'm on my BH added note scales kick wanted to know if any of you guys know what Barry advocates on isolated dim7 chords or where I can find this info (books, DVDs etc.) Barry didn't mention that in the workshops of his I've been to...

[A. Kingstone]

You can consider the 4 Related Dominant roots, each a semi-tone below the 4 diminished chord notes.

Also, chromatically fill in the minor third intervals of the original diminished chord.

C (C# D) Eb

Gb (G G#) A ….etc.


Up/Down

Arpeggiate


That first example with 4 Related Dominant roots you will recognize as the Diminished Scale.
Barry will say "Don't call it half-step, whole-step; we're too smart for that".
His point is where it comes from.

IE: 4 notes of a Diminished / 4 Related Dominant roots a semi-tone below each.




Howard saw Barry play 3 nights last week at the Vanguard and Barry played with only his right hand due to inflammation in his left. Fast, ballads, Howard said it was a case of "mind over matter" as Barry played beautifully.

[christianm77]

Thanks for taking the time Alex :-)

[AlainJazz]

It takes a bit of getting used to.

The trick harmonically is to start thinking sixth sixth sixth.

Instead of the static Dm7 - think F6o scale.

Instead of the static G7alt - think Abm6o scale.

Instead of the static CMa7 - think C6o or G6 into C6.

It's about movement and improvisation while chording.

Alan, am I correct in asserting that the following scales will also sound good on the G7alt:
Abm6o
Dm6o
Fm6o
and
Bm6o (this one sounds a bit out but I think it still works)