Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 9: Sixth chords and the scales of chords

Using the scale of chords to make a chord melody

Episode 55 · 12:13 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris shows how he uses Barry’s minor 6th diminished scale of chords to arrange the opening of Alone Together for guitar. Barry hears the half-diminished chord as a minor 6, so two scales of chords, D minor 6 and G minor 6 diminished, cover most of the passage. Holding notes, intervals and borrowed notes then let him improvise the chord melody rather than repeat one fixed arrangement.

Step by step

  1. 0:38Alone Together in D minor: D minor for a bar, then E minor 7 flat 5 and A7 for two beats each, twice; then D minor, a half-diminished to D7 and G minor 6. Learn the melody first
  2. 1:47Prerequisite: D minor 6 diminished in drop 2 (four adjacent strings), drop 3 and drop 2 and 4
  3. 2:23Also know the scale in thirds, sixths, octaves and tenths
  4. 3:04Harmonize the first melody note with a D minor 6, or simply in thirds
  5. 3:39Barry calls E minor 7 flat 5 G minor 6, so use the G minor 6 diminished scale there in the same shapes
  6. 4:50Move through the D minor 6 and G minor 6 scales under the melody: chords the first time, sixths the next
  7. 5:35Barry’s device: keep one note constant while you come down the scale of chords
  8. 6:43Borrow notes: in D minor 6 take B flat from the C sharp diminished in place of B, and keep borrowing it as you climb the scale
  9. 7:58Borrow in the diminished chords too, a note from the D minor 6, for a little tension
  10. 9:34Know the scale of chords well enough to improvise the chord melody differently each time instead of repeating one arrangement

Barry’s own words on this

9.5 The minor 6th diminished scale and its diminished partner9.4 Playing the scale of chords (block chords up and down the 6th dim scale)10.4 Borrowing10.5 Drop voicings

In the course

A half-diminished means the dominant whose third it isSixth chords rule: minor 7 is major 6, half-diminished is minor 6Drop 2, drop 3 and drop 2 and 4The intervals inside a drop 2BorrowingChord melody with the scales of chordsFreedom and your own voice

Transcript

  1. 0:04hello and welcome to episode 55 of things I learned from Barry Harris today I thought we would spend the episode just discussing chord melodies for the guitar because people ask me all the time about applying the six diminished two chord melodies and how you’d use it and it’s kind of a complicated question but I’ll show you how I break it down in my head and maybe it’ll help in the future for anybody else coming up with chord analogies I thought we would use
  2. 0:38the the standard called alone together which is in D minor which the first couple of changes our D minor for a measure and then e minor seven flat five for two beats a seven for two beats repeated then D minor again for a full measure then it goes to a half diminished to d7 for to be teach and G minor six for two
  3. 1:14measures so we’ll just do that much you have to know what the melody is and the melody for that tune is [Music] and that’s how far we’ll do now you got a need to know some basic things the first basic thing against needs to know
  4. 1:47is for the first chord is D minor six you have to know everything that’s involved in D minor six so you have to know all your D minor six is in drop two voicings and if you don’t know what that means it means four consecutive strings and I have previous episodes where I have shown minus six diminished in drop twos you also should know it in drop three which would be play a note skip a string play three strings you should also know it and drop two drop four
  5. 2:23which is play two strings skip a string play two strings so all those things you should know you should know all those things that’s prerequisite that’s just four chords the other thing you should know how to do is just you should know your obviously your scale you should know your scale in thirds [Music] you should know your scale in six I say [Music] you should know your skill at octaves
  6. 3:04and so on you should know your scale in tents you should know all those little things you should know how to do now where this comes in so the first part of the song is there’s the melody note so let’s say we play a nice D minor six there which makes sense but we could also just do thirds [Music]
  7. 3:39which is pretty - or we could just play this is already our G minus 6 because the next change after you do D minor 6 is e minus 7 plus 5 to a 7 now the e minor 7 flat 5 Barry calls G minor 6 that’s part of the G -6 diminished scale which then you have to know all of your G minor 6 is in drop twos drop threes drop to drop for you also have to know that scale up and down in thirds and so
  8. 4:16on in sixths intense the whole idea now that helps because the first part of the song says that next melody note is already G minor 6 changes have diminished so now we got [Music] now all those t-minus six diminished some D minor six and even here is going to be the diminish that goes with G
  9. 4:50minus six so now let’s do that so there’s a little there’s one idea of doing it another idea maybe you might want to do cords the first time the second time maybe you want to do six so maybe [Music] so there’s a lot of different ways to
  10. 5:35approach it how about if we just buried us this thing sometimes where you stay on a note and then you just come down the scale so that’s scale obviously I’m coming down t minor six but I’m gonna keep this note constant so now I’m going to say it’s just really pretty so let’s try that [Music] and I’ll do the same thing that’s for G minus six so I have to do the exactly
  11. 6:07the same thing for G minus 6 g minus 6 scale is this so I might say let’s see if I could put that together in time one two three [Music] so let’s try to do also borrowed notes borrowing notes is pretty too so if you take a look at some borrowed notes let’s
  12. 6:43say even for the first chord instead of just making it D minor six a plain D minor six of the drop two of is diminished below the D minor six which is part of the scale which is the C sharp diminished so maybe else I’ll borrow the B flat for the B so instead of say maybe I’ll say and then maybe I’ll add some thirds to it so
  13. 7:14[Music] that’s nice now even here climbing the scale those three chords what if I wanted to borrow hi again t minus six so now I’ll borrow this again let’s borrow that B flat again but now I’m gonna borrow it here so now it’s gonna be here that chord is out but it sounds good so if I continue borrowing that note all the way
  14. 7:58it is the first chord the second chord is supposed to be a diminished but I’m still borrowing I’m going up the scale using that same borrowed note so now I have to borrow the note from the D minor six for the dimensions of the borrow the note from this court which would be a B national that’s the second chord is a D minor six and there’s the diminished above it so now I’m going to be borrowing for the B I’m going to be borrowing the C sharp so that sounds
  15. 8:30like this [Music] it’s there just this I’m gonna do this [Music] so now it’s almost there’s a little bit of tension there and the same thing here this is supposed to be the diminished for the G minor six but instead of playing the full diminished maybe I’ll just borrow those two nose or maybe I’ll borrow that these two nose maybe I’ll just play tents so let’s see what that sounds like
  16. 9:01[Music] so hmm this is where I personally I run into a problem it’s because the idea of coming up with a chord melody is very important because then it’s when you’re playing a gig doing solo guitar or even playing with a trio or something you
  17. 9:34have yet that bass together okay you have that arrangement together but what berry system allows you to do is to improvise within all those chords in that chord structure so if you really know your six diminished well which I’m really working on doing myself you should be able to come up with different ways to play the same chord melody all the time now some of them are going to be prettier than others and some of them are going to be hipper than others but it’s the concept of being able to
  18. 10:06improvise with the chords which is really pretty so in a way for me personally it’s kind of a drag to come up with okay here’s my arrangement of this song this is it this is how I play it and now every time I play it I’m just gonna run out this duplicate way that I play it all the time which is fine and I believe me I do it I have to do it but there is a little part of me that says oh man wouldn’t it be great if every time I play this tune I could play you know I could be just as fulfilled playing it because I’m looking at it in a new way and just using basically those
  19. 10:40same those same chords chords the D minor six diminished or the G minor six diminished you know we didn’t even really talk about what you could do for a seven we didn’t really talk about what you could do for d7 or even a half diminished we didn’t really get to that that starts C minor six is the same idea you have to know all those things for C minor six you have to know the the chords and drop two in drop three in drop two drop four you have to know the chords in thirds in sixth intense and so on and so you see it’s limitless though all of us could know the chords to this
  20. 11:16and each get eight bars to play and every one of us could play a different that would definitely play something different but they would all I’m sure be beautiful all of them because this this scale and this system it’s almost impossible to mess it up but believe me I’ve tried to mess it up and it’s almost impossible to mess up it’s almost impossible so that’s just a little window into how at least I perceive Barry’s ideas for how to work on a court arrangement or a chord melody for guitar
  21. 11:51I hope it was helpful and we’ll talk soon thanks again for watching episode 55 which would be ways to use the -6 diminished in a chord melody thanks again until next time