You are the Bob Ross of Jazz. I mean that in the best way. You make learning this language so fun and peaceful; it is very refreshing. Thank you for sharing Barry’s (and your) wisdom, brother.
Chris should receive an honorary doctorate from the Barry Harris School of Bebop. His patience, mastery and clarity to deliver this methodology leaves us with an opportunity to play this style from the true place it created. As Barry learned from the masters, he passed the knowledge down and we are the beneficiaries. Thanks Chris.
A really cool thing is if you put this idea into chords. For guitar the drop 3 voicings a good for this. So the first chord would be G, E, A, C and the next Ab, G ( cause there is no halfstep to go) Bb, Db and so on.
At 3:54 starting on the b7 phrase. You skip the #11 and go P5 to M3 then decsend the four chord triad..if you follow the exact Barry Harris chromatic scale rule you will get 3 more notes before you land on the P5 then resolve on the M3 which is the 5 the of the four chord and starts the triad descent..Respect 💌📫
Not sure that ive seen so many extra helpful comments and ideas here in the comments before but there they are. Someone pointed out that the family of dominants spelled out another diminished chord. I dont remember hearing that but I see that now. Chris, if you are reading maybe you have something useful for this idea as well?
Super wise as Always: do you have any raccomandation about the direction of the Lines? I mean there Is Always something intresting about your lines rythmically speaking: you tend finish an idea that go downward and then in a certain Moment come back again from a note way more higher and create another idea . Is there a particolar way to rationalaising that or it's Just a thing thath you do whithout thinking?
May I just pick up on one little nugget that you dropped and might have passed unnoticed? One problem I always had with the half-step rules was I didn't understand where the scale started and where it ended. How many half steps would I use if I stopped short of a full octave? It may seem silly or obvious to everyone else, but it made the rules unusable for me. The chromatic scale opened my eyes that you can use as much or as little as you want regardless of where the run of notes starts in the scale. As you said, Barry doesn't expect you to do long runs of just the chromatic scale. A single phrase can incorporate some chords, triads, BH filler phrases, simple scale runs AND the chromatic scale in whatever proportions your ear hears. If, like they did for me, the "rules" always seemed to imply octave long runs BH's chromatic scale frees you from that thinking. Thank you for your continued efforts in demystifying these concepts!
First of all, thank you for the incredible work you are doing, compiling all that wisdom that Barry transmitted to you. I started to study jazz with Jushua Edelman, one of his "disciples", but in your videos I have felt much more progress in a few months, with all that ordered material and making us learn to think. I play the tenor saxophone and I want to ask you a question: My improvisation teacher insists that I learn small cells of Bebop language from the giants (Parker, Powell, Stitt, f. Navarro...), I speak of 1-2 bar phrases to design a solo. I tend to use the resources that I have learned from all your videos, but it takes time to get fluency and sometimes the phrases are not very good or the chord changes are not appreciated. What do you think of learning small phrases?, Perhaps it would be nice to have a certain repertoire of short phrases to use when we are cold? Thanks
Great work! I have a little question, how do Barry Harris method deal with the various alterations of dominant chords? I'm struggle to find a way to improvise with the exact alterations in any given 7th chord, apart from using the minor 6th diminished sclae
One way I know how (and I want to learn more ways too) is to play a melodic minor or 6th dim scale a minor 2nd above a 5 chords root. So on a G7 play Ab melodic minor stuff, giving you a good G7 alt sound. One more, simply the 7th scale of the tritone, so a Db7 scale over the G7. Interestingly, Db7 and Abm6 (from 1st ex.) is Barry’s “6th on the 5th” concept: where a minor or major 6 chord built from the 5th can be added on any chord for nice color. Abm6 is Db7s 5th. Edit: didn’t realize you were looking for exact matches for alterations. I’d be curious to know too if there are some other cool scales to play that would match certain harmonies.
One answer is to use the family of dominants. Barry taught that the diminished for G7 is B diminished. From the B diminished, you can lower the Ab a half step and create G7. You can lower the D a half step and create Db7. You can lower the F a half step and have E7. You can lower the B a half step and have Bb7. These 4 dominants are a family. And also note that they create another diminished chord Db, E, G, Bb. So what can you play over G7? Play the G7 scale (no altered notes). Play the Db7 scale (note that this is the tritone. You get the 3rd and the b7 plus all the altered notes). You can play the other family members as well. Play E7 you get maj7, b9, #11. Play Bb7, you get #9, b13, b9. You can also go up the B diminished arpeggio and the Bb diminished arpeggio.
this families concept also applies to the important minor of a dominant. just like when u lower a dimished notes one by one you get the family of dominants, raising each note one by one gives you minor 6s. G7's important minor is D-6. using anything u practice on yr D-6 dim scale over G7 will give u what chord scale theory ppl might call G7 9 #11 13. D-6s family is D F Ab and B. using F-6dim will give u like a Gsus7b9 sorta sound, and Ab-6 would be a G7alt. (the b-6 is kinda the odd one out but kinda fun anyway). this is cool cos it means anything i practice with my minor 6 dim scale can have a dominant function. practicing moving the families into eachother becomes important too (d-6 moving to f-6 to ab-6 is real pretty and that move is technically G7 in this concept) how this translates out of the scale of chords concept and into the 7 note scale melody concept is this: practice G7 up and down to Cmaj up and down. then do D- up and down to Cmaj up and down. (he has a trick for minors where u play to the 6th with a h/s between 5 and 6 or straight up play melodic minor) you can do this exact thing with the other minors in this family also (f-6 and ab-6). if the bass player is playing G you as the soloist are suggesting a certain altered version of V. this is cool because instead of thinking about modes; just learn your minor scale up to the seventh and back down. your D- phrase can be D-. but it can be B-7b5. it can be G7, Esus7 or Db7alt once u work on hearing it that way. (practicing with drones really helped me with this) i think the bigger thing that barry is trying to get ppl to do is to practice movement, meaning once i know this thing about the important minors, i might wanna practice moving D-6 into Cmaj, F-6 into Cmaj and Ab-6 into Cmaj. to get those sounds in our ears, then it doesnt really matter whats written on the chart, we have lotsa ways to get out of trouble if we play something we dont plan (combining all these scales of chords minus the b- means theres only F# that wont move like G7 would so working out these movements means showing our self how to hear how any note can resolve to Cmajor if we know how to move it), but most importantly we can respond better to whatever people are playing around us in real time
Really thanks to everyone, I'm trying different things but your answers were very helpful and amazing, now I'm going to practice my movements in every key,sheeees thats a lot of work
