Chris Parks · Stage 8: Thinking dominant
Bet you can’t play this: a Charlie Parker phrase
Chris takes a fragment of Charlie Parker’s famous alto break on A Night in Tunisia, in F major, and breaks it into two devices Barry taught: coming up a chord with a half step below the first note, and a turn around a note followed by a third. Then, as Barry would, he plays the phrase from every degree of the scale and varies it with eighth- and sixteenth-note triplets.
Step by step
- 0:00The phrase is part of Bird’s alto break on A Night in Tunisia, in F major; it is played here without the double time.
- 0:37First device: come up a chord from every degree with a half step below the first note, usually practised as a triplet.
- 1:18Bird starts it right on the beat in plain eighth notes instead.
- 1:59Second device, in thirds: start on the ‘and’, play the note, the half step below, the note again, then up a third (F, E, F, A).
- 3:08Bird joins them: E, F, A, C, E up the chord, down a scale note to D, then D, C sharp, D, F.
- 4:54As Barry would, play it from every degree: from G (it suits G minor to C7), from A, and on up the scale.
- 6:08Make the first part a triplet, as usually practised, and run it from each degree.
- 7:01In the original phrase, put a sixteenth-note triplet on the top note of the chord, E, using the scale note above it.
- 8:23The triplets change the sound and push you into other positions on the guitar.
- 9:43Barry taught us not to stop at learning Bird’s phrase but to try it on every degree.
Chords and notes in this video
Tap a time to jump to it in the video.
Barry’s own words on this
In the course
ThirdsChord up: Barry’s ‘chord’Know it everywhere on the guitarEighth- and sixteenth-note triplets in linesDissect the masters’ phrasesBird’s Night in Tunisia break phrase
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 125 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. And today I thought we would just deal with this beautiful Charlie Parker phrase and concepts that you can get out of this, just one part of this beautiful phrase. It’s actually his alto break, famous alto break on night in Tunisia. And it’s double time, so we’re not going to double time it, but we’re just going to, I’ll show you the concept behind it. You have to know a couple of things. First thing is, it’s going to be in the key of FMA. major. So the first thing you have to know how to do is, well for this phrase, is you
- 0:37have to be able to know how to come up chords. From every degree. From every degree, up chords. The second thing you have to know how to do is put a half step below that first note. So So for instance, we usually do practice this and we’ll make it into a triplet. So we’ll say, 1, 2, 3, next one, next one, next one, next one, next. So we’ll do that.
- 1:18But in this particular phrase, he doesn’t make it a triplet. He starts right on the beat. So he’ll say one, two, three, four. Just eighth notes. Beautiful phrase too. See how it makes it different though, when we start on a different beat? It’s really pretty. Then he does this other pretty thing which we have to learn how to do, which is, we have in order to do thirds in F major. Now sometimes what you could do is do a half
- 1:59step below a note. That’s half step below thirds. Let’s see. Sometimes you could do, which is you You start, and this is what he does, he starts on a note on an and. So for instance, if we do F A, that’s the first third. What he’ll do is he’ll start on the and of the beat, one, put a half step below that first note, and then go up a third.
- 2:34Go back to the original and go up a third. So he’ll play F E F A. So one, two, three, four, one. So it’s one and two and three, which is really pretty. One and two and three. So now if you go up the scale like that, you’re going to get this. Every degree. And so on.
- 3:08But you see, already, that’s plenty of things that you can practice on F major and take and really learn how to come up with frames. just from that, just from that. But what Bird does is he puts those two things together. So for instance, he’ll take this thing which is which is the half step below the chord starting on a beat Then he comes down a scale note. So if we come up a chord from the root the last note is a major seven We’re gonna come down a scale note to the six and then there’s what we’re gonna do our thing on the third
- 3:43where we start on the 6, go down a half step, go back up to the 6, F. So it would be this. The notes would be E, F, A, C, E, then down to D, D, C sharp, D, F. So you get this. 1, 2, 3, 4. Now that is a beautiful phrase unto itself. three, four, try it quick.
- 4:21Really, really beautiful phrase. And you try to figure out in different positions, for a guitar player especially. You know, any of these positions. Anything you can think of. Whichever one you want to do it in. So that’s the first thing. So now what Barry, though, used to do is he would say, let’s take this beautiful bird phrase, and let’s do it from every degree of the scale. So what he meant was, let’s just go up the scale. So really, we started on the root, we did a half step below the root,
- 4:54we came up a chord, we came down a scale note, we did that little thing where we hit the scale note, go a half step below, back up to the scale note, and up a third. So then he’ll say, do it on every degree of the scale. So we did a thinking of F, so now let’s do a thinking of G. So now we have to do a half step below the G, up a chord, and then down a scale note, but then down a half step, back to that scale note, and then up a third. So now you have this, which is also a beautiful phrase. Listen to that over G minor C7.
- 5:32That’s a beautiful phrase. That’s a great phrase. Now let’s do it for the three. The 3 is starting from the A, so we’ll put a half step below the A. There’s the chord up, which ends on a G. So now we have to come down to the F, half step below, and then up to an A. That’s great, too. Let’s do it from the 4th. Also pretty. From the 6. From the major 7.
- 6:08and then back to the tonic again. That is so pretty. So now as with anything else, we can also learn how to do, we’ll take a phrase like that and maybe we’ll, instead of saying which I love, let’s maybe make the first thing into a triplet like we normally practice. So let’s say ah, that’s also pretty. Ah, do the second one. uh, uh, do the third one, uh, from the next one, uh, next one, uh, next one, uh, next one, mm, next one, back to the first one. That is beautiful. Just putting a hat, uh, making the
- 7:01first thing into a triplet instead of eighth notes. So that’s one beautiful thing. How about if we take the same phrase. So let’s go back to his original phrase. What if we put a triplet on one of the notes up here? That’s a nice one. So the top note of the chord, when we come up a chord, would be E. Let’s put a 16th note triplet on the E. And a 16th note triplet would be whatever the scale note is above this and then back down to six so that’s pretty so the first one now instead of this This is going to be next one.
- 7:49Next one. Oh god. Next one. That’s a hard one. And the sixth. And the seventh. Sorry. And then back to the first one.
- 8:23So you see, what the triplet does is, first of all, it gives you a slightly different sound to the phrase. The second thing, as a guitar player, it makes you have to play it in different positions. So the first one was cool. But the second one. that’s okay but watch this third one see that highest note is the one that I have to do a triplet on so I might change it to starting on the first finger and then that’s beautiful let’s do with the 16 no triplet or first oh I’m sorry let’s do with the triplet or first I like that sound third one
- 9:04fourth oh boy fifth let’s see where can I do it from sixth seventh back to the tonic that’s a beautiful phrase so you see how we just take one little thing little tiny phrase that goes by so fast from Charlie Parker but there’s so much depth to it. And if we really want to get better, what we do is we take that phrase and we learn how bird played it, which is exactly what we should do. But what Barry
- 9:43taught us and continues to teach us is we shouldn’t just be satisfied with that. We should say if there’s a beautiful phrase like that, let’s try it on every degree of the scale to see what we can come up with. And I mean I think on this channel I’ve done them with bug pal phrases too and bird phrases before, but But this is really some beautiful stuff. This is how we really learn how to do things on a scale. So once again, thanks for joining me and enjoy practicing your Charlie Parker phrases. Until next time.