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Barry Harris called the scale for ii V in minor “the minor’s five”. It is an ideal hybrid permutation. It is balanced with an extra added note. Balanced simply means that the chords tones stay on the beat. And we don't learn it up from its root, but instead, down from its 7th to the 3rd of the dominant chord of the moment.
Charlie Parker featured it numerous times during his solo on "What Is This Thing Called Love"
It's not just another cool lick. It is the archetypical, ideal permutation of the only hybrid scale outline that perfectly balances over a ii V in minor. Fluency with this scale requires retraining ones thinking and reflexes.
This hybrid scale can be analyzed as the 5th mode of Harmonic Minor with a very important added extra note. But conceiving of it and implementing it as the 5th mode of Harmonic Minor played down from its 6th degree with the added note is too awkward, in my opinion.
Harry Likas was the "Technical Editor of "The Jazz Theory Book" by Mark Levine and also helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book".
Last edited by rintincop; 01-28-2022 at 01:54 PM.
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01-27-2022 09:11 PM
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Another Example
Last edited by rintincop; 01-28-2022 at 01:55 PM.
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A third example with "Caravan" using what I'm calling "The Barry Harris ii V in minor scale".
Harry Likas was the "Technical Editor of "The Jazz Theory Book" by Mark Levine and also helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book".
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Whole half dim scale with a natural 4 instead of a #4.
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I think that would still be one note off to be a match. I think to be a match you would have to say something like half-whole dim scale with a 4 instead of #4 and a b6 instead of 6. It becomes far removed from a dim scale, IMO. It's no longer symmetrical and unfamiliar. Or 5th mode of harmonic minor with an added note of b7.
Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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You're right. It would be closer to mix flat 6; with a b2 and #2 instead of a natural 2.
For C7, the notes would be: C,Db,Eb,E,F,G,Ab,Bb,C
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Or in other words, play Eb7 down from its 7th to the E, 3rd of C7. It sounds ideal that way and it's easy to think of it that way. Playing it up from the root of C7 doesn't lay well. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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Acknowledges is misspelled on the Caravan page. Not trying to be a curmudgeon but if you’re printing this, that’s something you want to correct.
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I will try it out. Originally Posted by rintincop
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Another example
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As best as I can tell, this is just what Barry and his students have long called "the minor's dominant".
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I play harmonic major for Caravan and it seems to work out pretty well. The BH concepts are over my head. Originally Posted by rintincop
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Now that I've been in BH class I understand the wisdom of viewing it this way, rather than translating it into a base scale. Something about it that just sounds and feels accurate.
I also like scale outlining. It gives you the possible notes, and the length of time of the chord change.
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I notice often that BH students "sound like jazz." Lots of other jazz pedagogy doesn't seem to result in students that sound like jazz.
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Seems like an arcane association to me, I would just think of it as G Locrian since that's what it is (with nat. 6th added = the 3rd of C7) and Gm7b5 is the relative IIm7 chord for C7(alt). Originally Posted by rintincop
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The reason why one wouldn’t think of the locrian is that we’ve learned all our stuff on the dominant and minor scales. Which is the stuff that ‘sounds like jazz.’ So you convert and apply and everything sounds like fluent bop. Or whatever.
OTOH if you do the parallel chord scale thing - match scale to chord it requires a lot less internalised mental arithmetic but you have to learn stuff over every chord. You can obviously get really good at doing this too.
I usually reference the Modes, Chord Scales II chapter of the Advancing Guitarist but actually I would say I differ with Mick’s characterisation of the difference between the derivative and parallel approach (lol).
The reason for this is I don’t think Mick was teaching traditional bebop language and this is what the Barry Harris approach is really good at. Mick otoh is discussing chord scale theory specifically.
In fact whether you are Barry guy or not, chord scale theory itself is not necessary for playing bop, but an understanding of how to apply lines and melodies on different chords is. The traditional way to do this is substitution formulae - on Dm7b5 play Fm melodies, on G7 play Db7 stuff, that type of thing. You can relate that to CST, but it’s a lot looser and more ‘street.’
In the same way Pat Martino talked about ‘topics’ not scales.
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Is anybody not singing all those BH exercises?
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On playing on forms, check out Roni Ben Hurr’s BH on Minor Blues and Rhythm Changes on Mike’s Master Classes. Good stuff.
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Oh and Chris posted this with Open Studio, quite fun
A Little Barry Harris Secret - YouTube
Lots of chords hiding in the m6-dim
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I'm not sure what's considered "traditional," but I would think it would be thinking of IIm7-V7 or IIm7b5-V7(alt) as a harmonic pair, and thus use the same scale for both chords, not think of a different scale or tonal center for each chord - IIm7b5 (Fm) and G7 (Db7), which is why in this instance, I suggested G locrian for Gm7b5-C7(alt). Am I missing something? Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Depends how long it’s sticking around for. Originally Posted by Mick-7
Locrian IS a traditional sound (it’s diatonic after all) but it isn’t the way I think about it and I don’t think it’s how they thought about in the 40s. The modal terminology hadn’t really been developed at that point. Tristano had the melodic minor scales but he thought of them as parent scales, not modes.
There’s a bunch of ways to handle a minor II V I. The bop way is to use mostly minor key material with a bit of tritone/altered stuff for spice.
The only altered scale note that doesn’t appear in the minor key (ie the three basic minor scales) that appears in the altered scale is the b2, so it’s easy to slip it in. (It comes from the tritone sub really.) You can hear it in melodies like Segment and a Night in Tunisia. Often just before the resolution.
The Barry harris way is to start with the dominant related to the half dim chord and connect it into the minor using a dim7 arpeggio. Later you use tritone substitute. So other a Dm7b5 G7alt Cm I might play Bb7 Db7 Cm. In terms of notes, it’s the same thing just a different process that probably seems complicated at first, but actually works really well if you are using dominant bebop language.
But the brothers and sisters give you a lot of options - that’s just the most common one (I think?)
The jazz school way of handling a minor II V I (which I attribute to Bill Evans, but I think goes back earlier, maybe George Shearing, Tristano etc) is to use what a modern day musician would call Locrian #2 scale.
You could use Fmm Abmm Cmm over a Dm7b5 G7alt Cm6 for example. You can do the same thing using the Barry Harris version of the scales (m6-dim)
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Oh,I dig this. Basically take the 4-minor 6 shape and move each note down to create 4 additional chords of movement and tension. I’m gonna incorporate it! Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I have a good frame of reference for organizing the fingerboard every 3 frets (3 half steps or minor 3rds). The three note barre on the DGB string (note +P4 +M3) is also an excellent reference, to be moved up in minor thirds, I use withe dim chord, mapped up a minor 3rd. So, from the dim chord, we have not only the Dom7 brothers and sisters, but the m6 brothers and sisters.
Their little hack creates children of the minor 6 brothers and sisters.
Good stuff! Thank you.
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Here’s the stuff about Barry’s materials, especially the chord moment and chord solos and piano style guitar-which is GREAT for solo guitar:
Once you internalize it, you can move around freely on the fingerboard, with material you can play, mix and match, go through all kinds of permeations and combinations that you can (1) without excessive thinking use your ear to check if it sounds good; (2) allow you to concentrate on the really important stuff, the rhythmic quality of a phrase as it moves and develops.
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Might they have thought in terms of standard diatonic harmony intially i.e. the m7b5 as a chord built on the leading note? So Em7b5 to A7b9 - which I also think of as one harmonic unit - would be F major on the basis that E is the leading note of F major. Just a thought. Probably too simple. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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It’s hard to know. Originally Posted by Irishmuso
I think mostly they thought of the m7b5 as an inversion of m6. ‘A minor sixth with a sixth in the bass’ as Dizzy called it.
When Bird was getting it together, people played a lot fewer II chords in general. If you listen to Benny Goodman’s Honeysuckle Rose with Charlie Christian on guitar for example, they just sat on chord V for four bars. OTOH the m7b5 while not unheard of was rarer and you tended to get those m6 chords or even just plain dominants in the minor key instead of II Vs. Again, listen to Charlie Christian - I found a new baby, for example.
So as Barry said, bird played II V’s very often just on the V. It seems to me that Bird usually outlines a IVm on IIm7b5.
The rhythm section meanwhile got into playing more of these new bebop chords, II Vs and m7b5s, 7#11s and so on.
So it’s far from clear to me that they thought about II chords that much in terms of soloing.
As the bop era wore on the II V and the II V lick started to take off as its own thing.
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