Chris Parks · Stage 1: Rhythm and time

The most important puzzle piece: space

Episode 157 · 10:40 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris names space as the most important puzzle piece, admitting that guitarists tend to overplay. He combines Barry’s B flat blues scale outline with Barry’s exercise of taking off one note at a time, so each scale starts on a different beat or ‘and’ and you feel the space between phrases.

Step by step

1:45Of all the pieces on B flat 7, the most important is space.
2:21Masters leave space; horn players must stop to breathe, and guitarists and pianists need to build that in.
3:00Barry’s blues outline, B flat 7 up, E flat 7 up, B flat 7 up and down, already has rests, always in the same place.
3:40Barry’s exercise: take off one note at a time, so the scale starts later in the bar.
4:14Apply it to the outline: drop the first two notes so each scale starts on beat two, from the third.
5:27Drop three notes so each scale starts on the ‘and’ of two, from the fourth.
6:02Do the same with the outline descending: start on the fifth for beat two, or the sixth for the ‘and’ of one.
9:18Use it on any tune’s outline, such as the blues, I Got Rhythm or How High the Moon.
9:54Masters know exactly where to put a space; practise feeling it.

Barry’s own words on this

1.1 Rhythm comes first 4.4 Scale outlines 7.5 Rhythmic placement

In the course

Puzzle pieces Take off one note: Barry’s rhythm exercise Space, the most important puzzle piece

Transcript

0:00Hello and welcome to episode 157 of Things I Learned from Barry Harris. And today I thought we would talk about a puzzle piece because, you know, we’ve been talking about puzzle pieces that I have been neglecting to talk about and it’s probably the most important puzzle piece. But before we get started, I just wanted to point out that I’ve had this seven-day free trial going on at my school. S-K-O-O-L, which is fantastic. We’ve gained so many members. It’s been wonderful. We’ve been having classes together, and I’ve been putting up many lessons.
0:34We’re having a blast there. But I’ve decided I can’t keep that open for forever, so I’m going to be closing the seven-day free trial down May 1st. So on May 1st, you can still get it up through from today through May 1st. You can still get it. But after May 1st, it’s not going to be available anymore. So it’s a really great idea, too. The seven-day free trial is fantastic. You get to just look around what’s happening at the school, watch a bunch of the clips that I’ve been posting, maybe connect with some other people that are there who are in the same frame of mind who are trying to get these types of things together.
1:10And it’s turning into a really nice community. So that’s the announcement. is that it will be over. It’s going to be running the seven-day free trial through May 1st, but after May 1st, the seven-day free trial will be up, and that’s over at my school. Anyway, talking about this puzzle piece that I have neglected to talk about that probably is the most important puzzle piece, and that is if we’re playing B-flat 7, I talk about all the different things that Barry would have us do on B-flat 7, right? Thirds, triads, chords, pivots,
1:45half-step below the first note, nap-backs, important arpeggios, all those things, chromatic scale, his descending half-step rules, they’re all puzzle pieces, all of them. So some of them are harder to learn than others, but they’re all still puzzle pieces. But the puzzle piece that’s the most important, I feel like, is space. and see as a guitarist i know for myself i’m just speaking for myself i have a tendency to overplay so you you’re trying to make all the changes and then you just play over everything and you think
2:21oh look at how great this is i’m playing over everything and you don’t leave space and that’s not really what the music is supposed to be about if you listen to the masters the masters you can identify all of their phrasing and everything that they’re playing you could say oh they did a pivot They did a quarter from this, but the most important thing is the space they leave. See, so saxophone players have it a little bit easier than us, even though they started messing with this circular breathing. But for the most part, they have to stop blowing to take a breath. We should find a way to institute that for ourselves because we just have a way us and
3:00piano players. We could just play incessantly violinists, all of us. We can just play incessantly. that’s a mistake so we should learn how to do is put space in now i’ve been thinking about this because i’m a very slow learner and space is a very important part of our music so what’s a good way to figure out how to put it in well if we take barry’s idea of a scale outline for let’s say blues and b flat first four bars b flat seven up e flat seven up b flat seven up and down now watch what’s interesting about all those is it’s one and two and three and four then you have a rest one and
3:40two and three and four then again one and two and three and four and one and two and three so you’re actually putting in little spaces there whether you realize it or not now they happen to be occurring at the same spot okay so a nice way you can combine this is you know barry has this other thing where he takes a scale. What is it? That’s his exercise, and then you take off one note at a time. So you got this. That’s a whole measure. You take off the first one.
4:14Then you start on one, and you take off an eighth note each time. You can do that with his scale outline. Let’s say here’s our scale outline, and it always starts on the first beat. One and two and three and four. one and two and three and four one and two and three that’s always on the first beat what if i said i wanted to start on the second beat take off the first two notes so now we’ll start the first scale instead of starting from the b flat you start from the third so watch one two three four one that’s starting on the second beat i’ll do the same thing on the e flat one two three four
4:50now i’m starting on the second beat each time but do you see how that makes you feel something different maybe i’m so used to always starting everything on the first beat this makes you feel that one two three four ah now it makes you feel that the second beat what if i said maybe not the second beat but what if i did the end of the two. So one, two, three, four, one, two.
5:27One, two. Now I just took off three notes. So I took off the B-flat, the C, the D, and I started on the E-flat on the end of two. So one, two, three, four. But you see how nice that is? That’s the end of two. So you see, you could do that all the way. Suppose I got fast at the scale outline, and instead of doing it up, we were just doing these today. Suppose instead of doing them up, I did them down.
6:02So watch this down. One, two, three, four. That’s doing them down and up, okay? Which is fine. You could do that too. But now let’s do the same idea, but maybe let’s start on the second beat again so now I’ll take the first two notes off so if I’m going to do a descending I’m starting on the flat seventh I’ll take off the flat seventh and sixth and I’ll start on the fifth okay I’ll do the same thing for b flat and e flat one two three four one one one that’s a nice one what if I want to start on the and a one I’m just going to take off the first note, the A-flat. So I’ll start on the sixth. One, two, three, four, one.
6:50Oh, sorry. One, two, three, four, one. That’s a nice way to feel the end of one. You see? That’s a way to force you to feel what is it like to start on a certain beat and thus feel the space in between. You see? Because if I start and I say one ah, see I gotta feel that space. Ah, dee da boe dee boe da. Now, I might never think to play that.
7:22Like one, two, three I may never think to play that. But see if I say ah ah But see, that forces you to play something different, and it forces you to feel the space a little different. You see, the scale outlines are great, but they have the spaces in the same spots at the end of the measure every time.
7:57This kind of elongates that. This makes it bleed into the next measure, which is really nice. So I’m saying, like I’ve said this before, Barry’s way of approaching things is so brilliant. I mean, I feel like even he didn’t know how brilliant it was. It was just there’s so many brilliant ways to interpret this. So this is just another way of taking a Barry Harris exercise that he had us do, where you feel, first of all, it’s so brilliant that you feel, oh, these are. notes that you can play in that specific given time and you hear the changes for everything so
8:35you don’t even have to be a harmonic player you could just play all those all these scales and you’re you’re hearing the scale outline like somebody’s comping behind you but the next aspect the thinking of it through the prism of rhythm which is really and I always get corrected on this somebody I forget his name but he’s he’s so right about this he always corrects me rhythm first he says all the time and he’s a hundred percent right I forget which which user it is but he always says Barry would focus on rhythm first and he’s a hundred percent right so the rhythm the rhythmic aspect is always the part to me that’s the hardest to me I don’t feel it naturally other people feel
9:18it really naturally in various class there were so many like superb musicians that could just do things naturally. Like it was nothing, you know, that wasn’t me. So I have to, I have to really focus on these things, but this with the scale outline is super helpful. So if you’ve learned a scale outline for any of these tunes, like blues, I got rhythm, uh, how high the moon, any of them, you can use this and just try say, what happens if I take off a couple of notes, if I start on the and a two instead of starting on the one.
9:54Force yourself to feel that space. Because I’m telling you what you’ll find is the difference between even very good players and master level players are the masters just seem to know exactly where to put a space. Like it’s conversational, it’s perfect. They just know how to do that. So for a person like me, feeling like what does starting on the and a two feel like? I got to feel that that it’s a really important thing for me to do. I’m sure for you, for everybody else too. So, uh, anyway, enjoy, um, feeling the most important puzzle piece, which is space
10:35until next time.