Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 10: Movement

Lines Using Drop 2 on Rhythm Changes

Episode 68 · 12:05 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris turns drop-2 chords into single-note lines over rhythm changes in B flat. He builds the drop 2 from a B flat 6 chord, follows Barry in hearing C minor as E flat 6, then brings in tritones, the tritone’s minor 6 and IV major to IV minor, all heard as ways of playing pretty scale material.

Step by step

  1. 0:44Build a drop 2: B flat 6 (B flat, D, F, G) as four voices, then drop the alto, F, an octave: G, D, B flat, F.
  2. 1:52Learn every inversion; B flat and G minor in bars 1 and 2 are both B flat 6.
  3. 2:32Do the same for C minor heard as E flat 6, and for F7 (F, A, C, E flat).
  4. 3:07Add B flat 7, E flat 7, E diminished, the tritones B7 and E7, and their minors (F sharp minor 6, B minor 6).
  5. 3:56Play single-note lines through these shapes with a metronome around 160 to 170.
  6. 5:32Over C minor try D flat 6; if bar 1 has G7, try A flat minor 6, the minor of G7’s tritone.
  7. 7:37In place of F7, play F sharp minor 6, the minor of its tritone.
  8. 9:25Where the tune goes IV major to IV minor, use E flat 6 then E flat minor 6.
  9. 10:41Like early Bird, find how many pretty ways there are to play just the scale before adding half steps or substitutes.

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

B flat 60:44
𝄞♭
C3C4DFGB♭
  1. B♭
  2. D
  3. F
  4. G
Line1:52
𝄞♭♭
C4GCE♭B♭
  1. E♭
  2. G
  3. B♭
  4. C

Barry’s own words on this

10.5 Drop voicings13.2 Rhythm changes (‘seven songs in one’)8.5 The tritone9.1 Sixth chords rule

In the course

Know it everywhere on the guitarThe tritoneThe tritone’s minorIV6, raised IV diminished, ISixth chords rule: minor 7 is major 6, half-diminished is minor 6Drop 2, drop 3 and drop 2 and 4Rhythm changesPut it in a song

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 68 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. Today I thought we would talk about using drop 2s but for soloing, for single notes. So a lot of guitar players are going to already know these because this is primarily what we play, drop 2s. But horn players might not have the same point of reference for it, but a lot of horn players play drop 2s anyway. But let’s just discuss what a drop 2 is. And we’ll use, since we’re talking, I got rhythm, or rhythm changes to talk about it in the key of Bb. So the first chord is usually, well a lot of people play Bbmaj7, I play Bb6.
  2. 0:44So let’s just take Bb6. So the first chord is Bb6. So Bb6 consists of four notes. A Bb, a D, an F, and a G. Now, when we’re looking at it in terms of this is how we build what a drop 2 is. We got the B flat, which is the bass note, which would be 4. The D, which would be the tenor, that’s 3. The F, which is the alto, that’s 2. And the soprano voice, which is the G, that’s 1.
  3. 1:20So if we did it backwards, it would be 1, 2, 3, 4. There’s our 4 voices, okay? Okay, so now, I’m sorry, soprano, alto, tenor, bass. And all we’re doing now is dropping the two. So the two is the F or the alto voice, which we’re going to drop below the bass voice. So now instead of playing G, F, D, Bb, we’re going to play G, skip that F, put that down an octave, but we’ll say G, D, Bb, F. And there’s our drop two.
  4. 1:52And then we have to do all inversions of this chord. which is pretty. So that’s the first one we can think about is B-flat because in I got rhythm, the first two beats are B-flat, then we got G-minor for two beats, but both of those are B-flat-six. Then we got C-minor to F-seven. So we should really know those for C-minor and F-seven. So the C-minor, if we’re Barry people, we know that Barry doesn’t play C-minor-seven. He thinks of that as E-flat-six, which is pretty also, which consists of E flat, G, B flat, and C.
  5. 2:32And then you do the same thing with that. You take the second voice and you drop it down an octave and you learn all the inversions of that. Then we got F7, which is F, F, A, C, and B flat. And then we take that and we break it up in the same way where we take the second voice and we drop it down an octave and we do all the inversions. So now you have things like this. So how are we going to use this when we’re playing I Got Rhythm? That’s just the first couple of bars.
  6. 3:07And then we go to, let’s see, then we go to Bb7, which you should know also. Then we go to a lot of things. Eb7. E diminished. um all these in drop twos though so already and we haven’t even done tritone f7’s tritone would be uh b7 uh a bb7 tritone would be e7 i mean there’s so many things you could do also uh the important tritones minor. So let’s say for F7 would be F sharp minor 6. Let’s say for B flat 7’s tritone is E7,
  7. 3:56so that would be B minor 6. So let’s start trying to use some of these. Let’s create some phrases. So if we start, let me put some rhythm to it so you can get a feel for it. Let’s see. That’s at 170. So let’s say 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4. So I use them in some places.
  8. 4:41Not the greatest thing in the world, but... I use some diminishes. I use some sixes. Nice. Let me just slow it down a little bit so you can get a little better feel for it. Maybe 160. So let’s try again. This time I’ll try to use Bb6 into F7. I’ll see if that sounds good. Bb6. I mean, you can use them.
  9. 5:32That was the F7. Maybe we could use Bb6. That was Bb6 into when I got to C minor, I played Db6. Those are pretty. Let’s try that. Those are really pretty. So how about that? That’s a nice one. That’s the tritones minor. So for the first change, B flat, some people play G7. So I use the A flat minor 6. That’s a nice one. So we’ll say.
  10. 6:21that’s a nice one so that’s b flat six into uh g7’s important minor which is a flat minor six or g7’s tritones minor which is a flat minor six one two three four That time I used Bb7. Well, I did.
  11. 6:59Those are nice. How about if we use, hmm. I know, let’s use B7. I’ll try to fit that in. Let’s see. That’s a nice one, so let’s see. E7. Really pretty.
  12. 7:37Let’s try instead of B7, we’ll try. Instead of F7, we’ll play F7’s important minor on the tritone, which is F-shot-minor-6. That’s a nice one. So let’s see. That time I said E-flat 7. See, it’s an E diminished.
  13. 8:11See, these will be easier for guitar players, because these are the chords that we play anyway. So if I’m playing I Got Rhythm, I’ll say... See, I play those chords anyway. So now if I just say... Not that you’re going to play these all the time. You know, like anything else, you don’t want to overdo it. but there are a lot of really pretty examples. I’ll try it from the root. Let’s see.
  14. 8:46One, two, three. Yeah, man. These are so pretty. They’re really beautiful to play.
  15. 9:25See, and this is one of the few times, too, that as a guitar player, we can have something over the horn players. because we should see these much quicker than they do. So what would be another nice one? Oh, I know. So this part of rhythm changes. B-flat, G-minor, C-minor, F-7, 3-6-2-5. Now here’s one dominant. Now, a lot of times they play 4-dominant to sharp 4-diminished, but sometimes they play 4-manj to 4-minor. So you could turn that into, if you want,
  16. 10:01E-flat-6 and then E-flat-minor-6. Let me see if I can do that one. One, two, one, two, three, four. Too soon. That time I did E flat 6. I could have said.
  17. 10:41I just played one note of the minor. But man, you start to really see all of the things open up. Besides all the other things we know how to play. but playing drop twos are really impressive I mean they’re they really sound they add so much to your soloing I love them I just haven’t really practiced them that much but they are really beautiful so it’s just another thing to think about you know with all the other things that you think about in terms of soloing and what I like about this is it’s just again it’s just scale I mean I um I was talking to some of my students about this, but some of the most beautiful bird is the early bird,
  18. 11:23where he’s playing so much scale, just scale, just scale things, not even half steps, just beautiful scale things. And that’s almost the thing that we should try to do, too, is before we even add half steps or do anything with tritone or important minor or something or I’m sorry tritones minor anything like that we should say how many pretty ways can we play just scale so this is a nice way to do that too anyway I hope you enjoyed it and have fun practicing your drop twos while So until next time.
  19. 12:02Thanks.