Chris Parks · Stage 10: Movement

Borrowing notes

Episode 17 · 17:07 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris explains Barry’s borrowing: putting a note of a sixth chord’s diminished in place of one of its chord tones, then resolving it. On Star Eyes, E flat major 7 becomes E flat 6 with D borrowed for C, and the guitarist’s F minor 7 with a fourth is A flat 6 with a note borrowed from the diminished below. He borrows one note, two notes, and the outer notes of a drop 2 voicing, and moves the shapes along the scale of chords, treating each tension as something to resolve.

Step by step

0:00Work on Star Eyes in E flat: you need E flat 6 diminished, and A flat 6 diminished for the F minor 7, which Barry hears as A flat 6
1:36E flat major 7 is E flat 6 with one borrowed note: the D of the diminished in place of the C
2:12Borrow from the diminished above or below: try B in place of C for a harder, pretty chord, and bring the borrowed note back home
2:52Move the same borrowed-note voicing up the E flat 6 scale of chords; the dissonant ones make sense once you resolve them
4:11Star Eyes repeats its first change a whole step down (E flat minor 7, A flat 7, D flat); pick any target note and borrow one, two or three notes on the way
5:22The F minor 7 with a fourth that guitarists play is A flat 6 with B flat borrowed for C from the diminished below; resolve it to the plain chord
5:59Borrow two neighbouring notes at once, then resolve: set up the dissonance and release it, or hold it before resolving. Barry would call it A flat 6 with two borrowed notes
7:12Borrow the lowest and highest notes of the drop 2 voicing instead, then borrow upward from the diminished above
9:34On A flat 6, two borrowed notes from the diminished give an E flat 6 sound; try such pairs in tempo and then a whole step lower
11:58Chris doesn’t plan these; Barry’s classes work the same way, moving from one idea to the next out of a huge vocabulary

Barry’s own words on this

10.4 Borrowing 9.1 Sixth chords rule 9.4 Playing the scale of chords (block chords up and down the 6th dim scale)

In the course

Sixth chords rule: minor 7 is major 6, half-diminished is minor 6 Borrowing Star Eyes What Barry’s class was like

Transcript

0:00Hello and welcome to episode 17 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. Today I thought we would take on something that Barry likes to refer to as borrowing notes and the concept behind it. So today we’ll discuss it through the idea of maybe looking at a song called Star Eyes, which is an E-flat. So the chords, or the scale of chords that you’re going to need to know, at least for the first part, is E-flat-six, diminished. and then it goes to
0:46after that it goes to Fm7 which we don’t think of as Fm7 or Barry does not think of as Fm7 he thinks of it as Ab6 so then we have to know our Ab6 diminished and then maybe on the Bb7 it goes to Bb7 after that but we can get into maybe Bm6 which of course you have to know. And then back to Eb. So, but let’s just discuss his idea of borrowing notes. So, for instance, the first chord of Star Eyes, most people see as Ebmaj7. Now Barry likes to think of Ebmaj7
1:36as E flat 6 with one borrowed note. And the borrowed note would be the D for the C. And the way he comes up with this is if we say E flat 6, okay, then we have the diminished below it. We also have the diminished above it. And there is your D. So he’s borrowing one note of that diminished. Instead of playing the whole diminished,
2:12he’s just borrowing the one note. Now what’s also true about borrowed notes is you could also borrow, you could borrow above or below, the diminished above or the diminished below. So here’s the E flat 6 again. Here’s the diminished below. Here’s the diminished above. We just borrowed the D for the C, but then we brought it back. Now instead of borrowing the D for the C, maybe we could borrow the B for the C, which would sound like it’s a little bit harder to play, but pretty chord. Very pretty chord.
2:52Now you can take those type of things up the scale. So what he would do is say, okay, here’s E flat 6, but here’s a borrowed note. There’s the first chord. Now if we just take that exact chord up the E flat 6 scale, it would be this. That’s the first one. The second one would be this. The third one would be this. So if we just take a look at those first three. Now you might say those are odd sounding or maybe a little too dissonant. But remember, if you keep them in context and think about how you can resolve them,
3:32that’s what makes this borrowing notes beautiful. So if we just did the first one. I just did something with it. Or if we said... See, I could have just done all three of them. Well, the third one was messed up. Okay, but we’ll get into the next change after that.
4:11What Star Eyes does is it plays E-flat, and then F-minor 7 to B-flat 7 to E-flat again, and then changes E-flat major to E-flat minor, plays E flat minor 7 to A flat 7 to D flat major. So it does basically the same change down a whole step. Right now we’ll just look at the first part. So we just borrowed one note. Now what’s fun about this is you just try to target any note and come up with anything you want from borrowing the notes. Or you could take that up a scale just like we just did. But what I find for me is more helpful
4:48is I just kind of try to play something with using a borrowed note, or maybe two, or maybe three. Like, for instance, well, let’s get to the F minor 7, is the second chord. So an F minor 7 is really A flat 6. Now, one chord that you see a lot of guitar players especially playing is they’ll play this instead of an F minor 7, which has the fourth in it. So,
5:22Barry sees that as just a borrowed note. It’s borrowed from the diminished that’s below it. So here’s F-7. It’s diminished above it. It’s diminished below it. So think about that. Now this chord is this. If you resolve it. Which is really beautiful. But if you can borrow that note below, why can’t you borrow, let’s say, let’s say these two notes below.
5:59So now I borrowed this note and this note for this note and this note. So here’s the two notes I borrowed from the diminished, and here’s the rest of the minor 7 which is just these two notes so now I change it to this so I think the idea behind it is you’re setting up some of these beautiful beautiful dissonance but then resolving it into something that is more appealing but setting up that tension is what makes it so beautiful and it’s not like you have to set up tension and then release it or or and do it in that way
6:37but it’s just a good way to look at some people set up the dissonance keep the distance keep the dissonance and then resolve it which is also pretty but again so here’s two notes that we’re borrowing these two notes for the diminished here is the minor seven there’s these two notes so this which is a beautiful chord I don’t even know I don’t even know what we would call this chord I mean it doesn’t really have a name Barry would call it A-flat-six with two borrowed notes. That’s what I like about it, because that to me makes more sense. Now if we could borrow the two notes,
7:12the two closest notes here for the drop two, maybe we’ll borrow the lowest note and the highest note of the drop two. So then this is the chord. We still want these two notes, so we have to make this chord. So let me do that one again. Those are really beautiful. So those are the two furthest notes.
7:50Now, what’s interesting also is you can do, I mean, you can borrow any note. So let’s borrow some notes above. So you hear this all the time. You know, people play this all the time. But what maybe they don’t think of is that that’s a borrowed note from this diminished chord. So if you’re playing that note, then you can also play this note, which is really beautiful. Or you can also play this note too, which is really pretty.
8:28Let me do that again. which is beautiful. But, so those three notes. Now, what’s also nice is you can borrow a note below the lowest note. So this diminished again. You can maybe borrow a note above here. So how about these two? Which is really pretty. So let’s try that.
9:01That’s pretty. Oh. Let me try that again. So, you see, you can borrow your notes anywhere. Now, sometimes, well, let’s do this A flat six. and you borrow, let’s say there’s the diminished above it
9:34there’s the diminished below it so maybe let’s try that was pretty or maybe these two notes above so you get this which is really pretty you get another E flat 6 so when you have two borrowed notes of the A flat 6, you get another E flat 6, which is really pretty. Also, you get this full,
10:06because you get this full, which is really interesting, B minor. So if I borrow, here’s the 6, here’s the diminished, I’m going to borrow these two notes for these two notes. So now I’m going to keep these two notes. Which is beautiful. Let me do that one again. So let me just see if I can put that into tempo. And then a whole step.
10:57Oh, and then... Anyway, so that’s taking a look at some of the diminished notes going this way, and then going this way. And that might even be nice too, if we took the... Here’s the 6, here’s the 6. is diminished, diminished, diminished. Now, this one, if I just did those two notes
11:30and then played a full chord and then maybe did the same thing to this so that you got the diminished below, which is this one, diminished above, which is this one, so you do this. So let’s see how that sounds like. Oh, I messed it up, but... I mean, there’s just so many different things that you can do with it. You know, if it’s at a faster tempo, it’s kind of hard.
12:05You have to work those things out. But, I mean, if you’re just sitting around with your instrument and you wanted to see how you’d be able to borrow notes and then resolve notes and different things that you could do with them, it’s limitless. And again, that’s the whole reason that I fell in love with Barry’s teaching and Barry’s method, is that it truly is limitless. I think I told somebody in one of the comment sections that I don’t really prepare any of these necessarily. Think about what I’m going to play or exactly what I’m going to do.
12:39I just try to let it happen. And that’s very much what his classes are like. He doesn’t have any lesson plan or anything. He just kind of goes. He has no idea what song he’s going to work on or songs he’s going to work on. He has no idea how he’s going to attack it. But that’s just how enormous his vocabulary is of these things. It’s really remarkable. So I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before in any of the lessons, but if you ever have a chance to go to one of his classes, whether it’s in New York or whether he’s traveling overseas, you really need to get there.
13:14because as good as you think this is, like just me making some of these videos, I mean, I can’t describe how great it is to be in the room with him when he’s doing it. And going from one thing to the next thing, it’s really unbelievable. I was talking to a friend of mine about it and we were saying how you only really know what excellence is when you’ve experienced it. And then it kind of messes you up a little bit because when something doesn’t have excellence, you don’t feel great about it. It’s not a big deal to you. So being around Barry, one of the things that’s happened is it’s kind of, and I think this happens to a lot of his students, is it messes them up a little bit.
14:05Because to be around such excellence, and it really is excellence and mastery. When you hear other people play, you hear other people teaching, it’s not quite the same level. So it’s kind of tough to look elsewhere. but you know his his methodology is not something that I felt like I’ve needed to compensate with something else but these these borrowed notes are so super cool on guitar I mean I can’t and piano obviously they’re great and you know actually if you were playing single notes they’re also very valuable I mean
14:46just in a context if you’re playing Star Eyes. So some things that people should know how to play, especially horn players, is guitar players... You might play this, but you, but horn players should know how to play. And then even this. Which is. See. Some things that horn players should know about.
15:26But anyway, so here we’d be borrowing an open. Oh, well, I went off time there. But that’s a perfect phrase for it. So you say, eh, eh. . . .
16:30Anyway, yeah, so I hope you enjoy these type of, this one, this particular lesson isn’t that structured but this is kind of how his classes go so to give the feel of how some of his classes are that’s the way it is and also who another thing that Barry likes to do is I don’t know if he likes to do it but it just happens