Chris Parks · Stage 10: Movement
What is the name of this chord?
Chris argues that we have chords backwards: we name a chord on sight, but for Barry the first question is which of his four scales of chords it comes from and which of its notes are borrowed from the diminished. He plays four odd-sounding guitar chords that are all G6 with borrowed notes and uses them in I-VI-II-V and on Body and Soul, to show that knowing the scale and the resolution matters more than the name.
Step by step
- 0:04We like to name chords on sight; for Barry the scale of chords a chord comes from matters more than its name
- 1:11Barry’s four scales of chords: major 6th, minor 6th, dominant 7th and dominant 7th flat 5 diminished; every chord comes from one of them
- 1:45Example: C major 7 is C6 with one borrowed note, the B taken from the diminished next to it
- 2:58First puzzle chord on the middle four strings, looking like plain C minor
- 3:35Barry can take ten random notes on the piano and say which scale of chords they come from and which notes are borrowed
- 6:25That C minor is G6 with three notes borrowed from the diminished; play it in a I-VI-II-V in D in place of E minor 7 (which is G6) and let it resolve
- 7:42The second chord, which has no sensible name, is also G6, with three notes borrowed and one kept; use it in a I-VI-II-V in G and as the ii of D
- 9:39The next chord, which you might call G with a sharp fifth, a sixth and a fourth, is G6 with two borrowed notes: borrow, then resolve, for tension
- 11:38Use these borrowed-note chords on the bridge of Body and Soul
- 12:14Naming is secondary: know where the diminished sits around a chord and how to resolve it, and you can sound like yourself with the same system
Chords and notes in this video
Tap a time to jump to it in the video.
Barry’s own words on this
In the course
Barry’s four scales of chordsEvery chord belongs to a scale of chordsBorrowingBody and SoulFreedom and your own voice
Transcript
- 0:04hello and welcome to episode 51 of things I’ve learned from Bayer Harris and for this episode I thought we would talk about something about courts and the importance of berries scale Accords and how I think the in terms of his teaching he would probably say that we have it backwards in terms about how we think about chords so we like to name chords we see a chord and we name it right away
- 0:35but to Barry what’s the scale is more important than the court so in other words the scale of chords that that particular sequence of notes comes from is much more important than what we call that now obviously you need to call we need to so that we’re all talking about the same thing we need to label chords I get it but that’s the least important of the understanding the first and most important understanding of a chord is
- 1:11what scale it comes from now Barry always talks about his four scales of Courts the four scales of chords are the major six diminished scale the minor sixth diminished scale the dominant seven diminished scale and the dominant seven flat five diminished scale those are his four scale courts he sees every chord as coming from those scales those four scales so any chord you can think
- 1:45of he sees as coming from those scaler chords just to give you for instance that one of the first chords I learned when supposedly learning how to play jazz was a C major seven chord which is the chord found on the first degree of the major scale if we go up the chords cegb there’s your first but when Barry sees that cord he sees this as c6 with 1 borrowed no and by a borrowed note if we talked about his 6th
- 2:22diminished scale so there’s a c6 here this is diminished above it there’s a diminished below it so he’s got this so now if he says this this cord he says this be natural as coming from this D diminish so he sees this as one bird now [Music] so that’s just to give you an example of where he what how he sees things now the
- 2:58title of this video is going to be called what is the name of this cord and I’m going to show you a few different cords and I’m just curious to see well what kind of responses I get but let’s take just for instance this cord right here which if we were going to play it it’s on the four middle strings it’s the third fret on the a string fifth fret on the D string fifth fret on the g string and a fourth fret on the B string now most of us know that chord
- 3:35would be C minor and we would say oh that’s easy that’s a C minor if there’s no problem I see that right away now Barry has this way of looking at things where and I’ve seen him do this a bunch of times he’ll have somebody walk over to the piano and lay ten fingers on random notes any random note and he will tell you what six diminished or what dominant seven or dominant seven flat five diminish or - six diminished those ten notes are in what scale those are in and how you have to move certain notes
- 4:10so that you could see it because they’re borrowed notes I mean it’s really it’s incredible I’ve never seen anything like it and I remember seeing it the first time being completely dumbfounded like what is he even talking about but now that I’ve started to get more into his courting idea and the things he thinks about now I see not only I’m starting to see it better but I even think it’s even more brilliant than the first time the first ten times I saw it but anyway so to take this chord if I take this see minor chord
- 4:46and you know what I’m gonna take this other cord I’m gonna do this now this cord is going to be all again on those same four strings for middle strings a sixth fret on the a-string ninth fret on the D string 8th fret on the g string 10th fret on the B string so here’s what we got so far this chord this chord now I’m gonna take the next set of strings the next four set of strings and I’m gonna play this
- 5:17chord and this chord is fifth fret sixth fret fifth fret sixth fret and it’s on the D string the g string strange down to court I’m gonna take this last chord what should I do how about this Court this Court is going to be same four strings that we just did tenth fret on the d-string ninth fret on
- 5:53the g string 8th fret on the B string 11th fret on the E string so here’s our four chords that is the oddest you know most dissonant sound except with the exception of the first one that you’re gonna hear now I know for a fact Barry would see those chords and would tell you right away well the first one he
- 6:25could say one of the options is this C minor is actually G six so here’s a g6 here’s a diminish below it just above it now how is this g6 well very simply we’re gonna take the D and instead of the D we’re going to borrow the scene from the diminished we’re gonna keep the G which is part of g6 the next note that’s in g6 is B natural we’re gonna make it C which is going to
- 7:01be borrowed from the diminished also and then the next the g6 is supposed to be an E natural but instead we’re gonna do a flat from the diminished so we got three diminished notes and one six though so we got three borrowed notes there’s our G six now if we were saying if we were in let’s say the key of D major and we said [Music] it’s really beautiful one six two five
- 7:42and I just played it in replace of a minor seven which is g6 and the idea is now I created a little movement within the chord change within playing that I just didn’t play just a straight a minor seven or just a straight g6 I made a little movement I created a little dissonance and then resolved it now the second chord believe it or not the second chord also comes from g6 here via g6 which looks like a minor 7 for most of us but the g6 would be here’s a borrowed
- 8:19[Music] these three notes are borrowed and this note stays the same for g6 and this one below so now we got this chord so now I’ll try the same actually let’s play g6 in the key of G so we’ll do one six two five and G so let’s say really beautiful
- 9:05beautiful there’s these now we’ve created something or I can you make it like the two of D major so here’s that D major again [Music] I mean do you see how beautiful this is so what what what is the name of this cord I have no idea I have no idea what you’d even call this maybe an e-flat
- 9:39major with a sharp five and a raised five I have no idea if you’d sound stupid trying to explain that okay let’s try the next one so what the heck cord is this now you could say well it’s a G with a sharp five mmm there’s the six and then what is this let’s see a fourth or an 11 I mean it just sounds dumb after a while putting all these numbers to it what
- 10:13berry would say is this is G 6 with 2 borrowed notes here’s G 6 is it diminished above it the 2 notes above it so if you if you borrow notes and then resolve them you create this beautiful tension so now let’s do it in Stuart in D again let’s say beautiful one six two five and D
- 10:51absolutely gorgeous I mean how beautiful that is that’s not we’re okay the next chord obviously is going to be again a g6 but with two borrowed notes and it happens to be the the two notes of the diminished again so now we got this
- 11:38so let’s take let’s say the bridge of body and soul we’ll say let’s take let’s make it into like we’re in the key of G major so we’ll say I mean there’s so many things to do with this but again what would you call this chord I have no idea I have no idea and
- 12:14it’s not important what’s important is that you see it in the scale of chords that is the most important thing what scale Accords does it come from so that shows you that naming the chords is second the most important thing is what scaler chords it comes from and Barre hammers that home all the time and discusses it all the time and lately I’ve seen a bunch of videos where they talk about um what kind of court is this what kind of chord is this that’s great if we’re thinking diatonic Li but if you
- 12:48know Berry’s scale accords his for scaler chords you there there’s an endless amount of chords you can know and you don’t have to name you just have to know where the diminishes around them and how to resolve it you know it’s totally unnecessary to know the name of it completely unnecessary to know the name of it so just like his single note system of explaining so that you can take his theory and make it your own and
- 13:20sound like yourself his scale chords in terms of courting accomplishes the same thing it allows you to improvise within a set of chord changes where I can sound different from another person who can sound different from another person but yet we’re all using the same scale of chords and we’ll all sound different well I’ll put them in totally different spots and again that I know I say this all the time but that’s what makes his system the best as far as I’m concerned I’ve never seen anybody else have theory
- 13:54that can lead you to all these different possibilities endless amount of possibilities so anyway I hope you enjoyed episode 51 of things I’ve learned from Barry Harris called what is the name of this chord until next time thanks