Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 2: The musical universe

The Whole Tone Scale

Episode 44 · 15:59 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris presents the whole-tone scale the way Barry derives it, as one of the two halves of the chromatic scale, and practises it like any of Barry’s scales: in thirds, augmented triads, wider intervals and contrary motion. He then uses it where Barry does, on a dominant going home a fourth higher, with the bridge of Body and Soul and a Bud Powell pattern.

Step by step

  1. 0:00Barry’s view: the chromatic scale splits into two whole-tone scales.
  2. 0:37The scale has six notes, all whole steps; practise it like any other scale.
  3. 1:25Play it up and down over two octaves, then in thirds, which are always major thirds.
  4. 2:05Play it in triads, which are all augmented, going one up and one down.
  5. 3:53Practise it in flat fifths, minor sixths, flat sevenths, octaves, ninths and tenths.
  6. 6:00Barry’s contrary motion: from one note, move up and down at once, through thirds, sixths, octaves and tenths.
  7. 7:57Use it on a dominant going home a fourth higher: A7 to D major, D minor, D7 or D half-diminished.
  8. 8:29Try it on the A7s in the bridge of Body and Soul in D, before D major and before D minor.
  9. 11:45Bud Powell’s pattern on A7: thirds down from the third, with a half step in between, on each degree.
  10. 13:52On guitar, finger it three notes then two notes per string, and move it up in half steps.

Barry’s own words on this

2.2 The two whole-tone scales (‘man and woman’)8.8 Whole tone in practice2.1 The chromatic scale is the source of every scale

In the course

Know it everywhere on the guitarBud Powell ideasBarry’s creation theoryThe whole-tone scaleThe intervals inside a drop 2Parallel, oblique and contrary motionBody and Soul

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 44 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. Today I thought I would talk about something that we haven’t brought up before which is the whole tone scale which Barry brings up quite often and the way that he comes up with it from his creation theory is he starts off with the chromatic scale. And those scales break up into two whole-tone scales.
  2. 0:37So this scale. And also this scale. And there’s your total chromatic scale. So let’s just talk about the whole-tone scale for a second. The whole-tone scale obviously comes from the idea that it’s built upon whole steps. So you have the first note, Then a whole step above it, a whole step above that, a whole step above that, a whole step above that, a whole step above that, and then back to the top one. So if you can see, it only has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 notes in it before we get back to the octave. Now you practice this scale in the same way you practice all of your other Barry Harris scales.
  3. 1:25So for instance, we should learn how to play the scale up and down. And let’s just do it kind of a little bit further than we normally do, because it’s only a six-note scale. So let’s make sure we do it at least two octaves. You have to know how to play that scale in thirds. Now you can either do it, or you try to stay in position, or you can just sense it’s always going to be the same kind of third.
  4. 2:05It’s always going to be a major third. You could just move major thirds. So you got, and then down. Sorry. That’s thirds. And maybe if you do triads, which would be the root... It would be augmented triad.
  5. 2:42So if we did that in triads, it would sound like this. Same thing. Same thing again. All and whole steps. Down. You can do one up, one down. Sorry.
  6. 3:16Same thing going down, opposite way. So that’s triads. You could do... Chords, it’s going to be the same thing. Now let’s just talk about a few other things.
  7. 3:53So you had thirds. But if we look at the next interval, if we start on the A, there’s a second, there’s a third, then we also have flat fifths. So you should also learn how to play it in flat fifths. Next interval up would be a minor sixth, so you should know how to play it in minor six. down
  8. 4:39pretty the next is a flat 7 so let’s see what that sounds like that one’s a little more dissonant but messed up a little there but next one is octaves the next one would be like
  9. 5:23let’s see a ninth So let’s try ninths. Down. Next one would be, uh, is the octave ninth. Tenths. Which is pretty, too. The next one, well let’s stop it at that point, that’s pretty good.
  10. 6:00The other thing that Barry does with it sometimes is he’ll start on one note, so we’re doing basically A whole tone. So I’m going to start on this note. I’m going to go up. But I’m also at the same time going to go down. So I got this going up. And then I’m going to do this going down at the same time. Now what gets interesting is you have to kind of do some weird fingering, but we’re going
  11. 6:39to do contrary. So we’ll start with one by itself. Now it’s going to go down and also up at the same time. So now you get thirds. Then you’re going to move this down again a whole step, this up a whole step, and you get that flat six, so now you get the first three of this. Now if we do it again, you’re going to get octaves. So now you’ve got this. If you do it again, you’re going to get tenths. Then we’re back to a full double octave really. Oh sorry.
  12. 7:19So you got the first three. I see I don’t know them as well as I should. So, okay, that’s another thing you can do with it. So, what Barry tries to point out is all those different ways to practice it.
  13. 7:57Okay, so you say, okay, well now how do I use it? How do I use all those things? They all sound strange. He likes to use it primarily when you’re playing a dominant chord going home. So in other words, if we’re playing an A7 chord going home to, let’s say, D major, home meaning a fourth higher. It could be to D major or it could be A7 going to D minor. Or it could be A7 going to D7. Any of those. Or it could be A7 going to D half diminished. It can be any of those.
  14. 8:29So let’s take a look at what you can do with it. And the song that has an A7 in it is, let’s say, the bridge of body and soul that says... Okay, so that’s in the key of D. So it’s D major. D, D, D, D, E minor, F sharp minor, D, D, D, G minor, to C7, and then 3, 6, 2, 5, and D, which is F sharp, to B minor, to E minor, to A7, to D major, and then you can play another A7 to get back to D minor,
  15. 9:15which is the next change of the song. So there’s kind of two spots there which you can play. So let’s try the first part. Right there would be a nice place to put a whole tone scale. So let’s see. Pretty right? Here comes another spot to put it. Here comes that.
  16. 10:00I did two of the different things. I did a whole tone scale where I did that contrary motion and I just ended on the tenths because I’m really not that good at doing it further. I could have done it that far and then got into D minor. But you see all the different little pretty things you could do with it. Let’s do, that was thirds. So let’s try it again. That’s the flat fifths.
  17. 10:38That’s really pretty, the flat fifths. So let’s try that again. Beautiful. Flat fifths. Let’s try the sixths. Let’s try a sixth. Let’s do something like that. Let’s try something different. That was just flat six. And that’s a pretty one.
  18. 11:10I’ve never played that one. And then it goes into D minor to G. But see, that’s a really pretty, those are really pretty things to do. Just now with just the thirds, then the flat fifths, then the minor sixes. Those were all beautiful, all beautiful ways to play it.
  19. 11:45And then we did the contrary. Again, contrary. Not D minor, because the second time around it goes to D minor. So all these little pretty things. Oh, you know, the reason why actually I brought it up was because Bud Powell plays this great thing. If we’re taking up A7, starting on the third, going down thirds. But he does this. That’s his pattern.
  20. 12:21So he comes down a third, then puts a half step in between, and comes down. So this would be the whole tone scale. But he puts a half step between those two, so he does this. And then he does it on each degree. Sometimes he doubles up, he says. but that’s a really pretty thing let me see if I can fit it in so you just kind of try to throw these little things in
  21. 13:07and I know there’s other places where you can use the whole tone scale but primarily to use them from a dominant point of view going home a fourth higher, whether that be to a major, to a minor, or to another dominant, or to a minor 7 flat 5. Those are all beautiful little things to do. So think about it. Just those few things that I just practiced. If you really got them together on your instrument, all the different little variations that you could come up with in doing chord melodies or even in your solos. You know, like if I’m soloing over this.
  22. 13:52See, you can just do anything you want on a whole tone stroke. It’s a really nice one to just do it a couple of octaves. A good way to practice it too is... Which is kind of a nice way to look at it if we’re looking at one position. You’ve got three notes this string. Now two notes on this string. If you’re playing guitar, of course. Then three notes on this string. Then you’ve got two notes again. Two notes on the B string. Three notes on the E string. So you’d have three notes.
  23. 14:26Two notes. Three notes. Two notes. Three notes. So it would be this. So as a guitar player, obviously, we like to do things in half steps. So we can do this. Or you can do one up and one down. Obviously, you know, I’m not the fastest person in the world, but you see the idea behind it, that you can practice it. You can practice it like that on saxophone too, also to get used to moving the whole tone scale up half steps is important too.
  24. 15:15Anyway, I hope this was informative about the whole tone scale because people have asked about it. And Barry does bring it up quite often, but he has, of course, you should go back and look at all those Barry Harris from Holland videos because some of the whole tone things he does are really fantastic on the piano. Just so beautiful. And you can transcribe it to guitar and really work out the fingering for it and it’ll sound really nice. so okay I hope you enjoyed episode 44 of things I learned from Barry Harris
  25. 15:49talking about whole tone scale until next time thanks