Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 6: Line devices

Pivots with a twist: starting them on the ‘and’

Episode 110 · 10:31 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris reviews Barry’s pivot on the G major scale, then breaks his own habit of always starting pivots on the beat by starting them on an ‘and’ over How High the Moon. Off-beat pivots only felt wrong because he had never practised them; learning to feel each ‘and’ is real practice, like Barry’s remark that the half-step rules reverse when you start on an ‘and’.

Step by step

  1. 0:34In G major, go up a four-note chord (note, skip a note) from every degree of the scale
  2. 1:07Pivot the chord from G: play G, then B, D and F sharp an octave lower; do it from every degree
  3. 2:14Check your habit: play pivots on the beat over the start of How High the Moon (G major) with the metronome at 130
  4. 3:47Start the same pivot phrase on the ‘and’ of one instead of on the beat, and make the line come out right
  5. 5:02On the G minor to C7 bars, think C7 and pivot from its flat 7th, first on the beat, then on the ‘and’ of one
  6. 7:08Practise feeling the ‘and’ of every beat; Barry pointed out the half-step rules reverse when you start on an ‘and’
  7. 8:38Play the tune again, starting pivots on the ‘and’ over both the G major and the C7

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

Line1:07
𝄞♯
C4GBC5DG♭
  1. G
  2. B
  3. D
  4. F#

Barry’s own words on this

6.7 Pivoting7.5 Rhythmic placement1.3 Feel the ‘ands’8.1 Put the ii chord away

In the course

The scale every way: up and down, thirds, triads, chordsThink the dominant: put the ii awayComing out right: why half stepsStart on the ‘and’ and the rules reverseFeel the ‘and’Pivots

Transcript

  1. 0:00hello and welcome to episode 110 of things i’ve learned from barry harris and today i thought we would talk about pivots but in a slightly different way than i’ve been showing them and um it just occurred to me that i’ve been doing pivots kind of the same all the time like a lot of things and how you can change it up and make it sound a little different so uh just to get everybody up to speed on what a pivot is let’s take uh the key of g so g major scale so what barry refers to as a pivot is
  2. 0:34when you go up and down the scale that’s fine but then a lot of times he says let’s go up a chord so this would be go up a chord play a note skip a note skip a note skipping up playing on so the first one would be this that’s the first one second one third one fourth one fifth sixth seventh back to the first one again okay so those are all chords up so generally when he pivots he talks about you can pivot anything but he refers to them
  3. 1:07let’s take for this instance as pivoting chords so the idea is here’s let’s go back to the first one we got g b d f so now instead of playing g b d f in that order in that direction we’re going to take the g and then we’re going to play the last three notes the b the d and the f sharp down an octave so that’s pretty so instead of playing so this and you have to from every
  4. 1:40degree so use the second one from the third um [Music] from the fourth [Music] and then for the tonic again really beautiful really beautiful but
  5. 2:14what i noticed in my own playing is i generally tend to put them always starting on the beat no matter what so if i’m playing g major let’s say i do the one from the g i might do that one all the time the same one two three four it’s pretty that’s a pretty phrase [Music] really beautiful so let’s say if we were taking a song
  6. 2:46like how high the moon which starts off on g major then it moves to c7 and the same thing in f major so if we said wait and i’ll use the metronome for an example so this is the metronome on 130. hopefully everybody can hear it one two one two three four [Music] pretty i mean i use it there all the time [Music] really beautiful
  7. 3:23now any time that i used to feel it starting on the offbeat i would think oh man i’m wrong if i would feel it on the end but what i didn’t realize is the only reason that it felt wrong was because i wasn’t used to it because it’s not wrong it’s not wrong to start on the and you just have to feel it and come out right so the first one so this is i said okay yet another thing i have to practice because i haven’t practiced it so we got this is on the beat one two three four
  8. 4:03[Music] that’s just the first part of the um how high the moon now suppose i did the same phrase or started the same fragrance on the end of one let’s see what it sounds like one two three four [Music] it’s pretty three four one [Music] that’s a totally different thing what if i started from the third one two three four one
  9. 4:35[Music] beautiful so ah [Music] i mean that is a beautiful phrase that i never would have played before had i thought to myself hey wait a second it’s not on the beat so it doesn’t sound right so like for instance one that i do all the time i’m super guilty of doing it and you’ll hear it in a lot of is pivot from the seventh so let’s take c7
  10. 5:09let’s just say because after does g major it does g major for two measures and then it plays g minor to c7 so right there that’s g minor c seven as very people we know that’s just going to be regular c7 so that’s the spot where i would a lot of times let’s say if i started on the second uh oh let’s just start on the seven and i’ll do a um i’ll do a pivot right from there so we’ll say watch one two three [Music]
  11. 5:48but if i started on the and the one we’d have one two three four one all so pretty listen how pretty that feels one two three four i mean that is beautiful so then i start to think wait a second anywhere that i start with these pivots i should feel free enough to do them on the on the beat or on the end i used to feel like oh that feels wrong
  12. 6:23and something it only felt wrong because i never practiced what it felt like but you can’t tell me that this doesn’t feel right one watch two three four two two three four now here’s the end two three four ah that pretty uh [Music] i mean that’s pretty stuff on the and it’s so pretty let’s see one two three four
  13. 6:56[Music] that’s beautiful stuff [Music] i mean that is pretty stuff so it’s just another example of something that it happens for me all the time but i’m sure it happens to other people something that you’ve been playing for years and years and years and then all of a sudden you discover this new little thing about it that you say oh wait a minute just like the half step rules when barry told us that thing
  14. 7:30about when you practice your half steps here’s all the rules which i diligently learned and then all of a sudden one day he just said oh and by the way if you um if you uh start on the end all the rules reverse and even though it makes total sense unless you actually practice it you can’t feel it and you know this is one of the few instances where because a lot of musicians talk about feel a lot of youtube teachers talk about well you got to feel it this feel and most of that is in my opinion pretentious nonsense
  15. 8:04it’s not anything feeling as not feeling is not about but this is feeling you have to learn how to feel the end of one you have to learn how to feel the end of four you have to learn how to feel the end of three you have to learn how to do and the only way i know how i don’t have some sort of natural ability to do it even though some people do i have to practice that i have to feel what that and one feels like and then when you feel it you say okay how do i start my half step rules starting on an end and then in this case how do i start my pivots starting on the end
  16. 8:38which is really something because i i mean it this has a totally different feel i mean this sounds so good i’m gonna start the wait let me see if i can do both i’ll start one two three [Music] that time i did i started the pivot for the beginning chord which is g major and the second time i started the pivot on the c7 when it goes to g minor c7
  17. 9:13i’m telling you i would never have played those phrases in life before had i not really thought about it and those phrases are just as cool as the as playing it on the beat let me try to play it on the beat let’s see one two three four one [Music] now that’s totally natural [Music] because that is the seventh is gonna be on a beat and then i can do my pivot and i’m totally comfortable
  18. 9:45but man the first way is just as pretty so it just goes to show you sometimes you take something that you’ve been doing for a very long time and you just twist it a little bit and now you discover this new beautiful thing and that’s i know i always preach about this but that’s the wonderful thing about barry’s teaching is that he constantly makes you re-analyze things or in in a way go deeper which is one thing he he spent his life doing is constantly going deeper so we all need to do that a little bit more anyway i
  19. 10:19hope you enjoyed this episode about uh what should i call it pivots but with a twist with a little twist anyway until next time thanks