Chris Parks · Stage 6: Line devices
Bud Powell’s chromatic triplet, taken up the scale
Chris takes a Bud Powell device from Bud’s Bubble, a chromatic triplet run from the third to the flat seventh of each dominant in the rhythm changes bridge, and does what Barry would do: play it from every degree. Seeing it as the outer notes of a triad filled with chromatics, he adjusts the perfect fifths by leaving out one chromatic note, then uses the results on the bridge.
Step by step
- 0:35On Bud’s Bubble, over the bridge dominants G7, C7 and F7, Bud runs a chromatic triplet from the third to the flat seventh, landing the seventh on the next beat.
- 1:47Barry would take it up the scale; on F7, see it as the lowest and highest notes of a triad, filled in chromatically.
- 2:54From the root the triad spans a perfect fifth, so a fully chromatic run doesn’t fit the rhythm; leave one chromatic note out.
- 3:35Leave out the second chromatic (F, F sharp, G, then A up to C), or, as Thomas does, the first (F, G, then chromatic to C).
- 4:47Go through each triad of F7 in turn, settling on one fingering for each degree.
- 7:25Coming down works the same way on descending fifths, such as C down to F.
- 7:58Use the results in a solo over the rhythm changes bridge.
- 9:48Diminished triads span a flat fifth, so those stay fully chromatic.
- 11:00Plain scale runs fit the triplet too, such as tonic up to the seventh, with no added half steps.
- 12:16Learn the masters’ language and make your own sentences, rather than stringing their licks together.
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
Take it up every degree of the scaleDissect the masters’ phrasesBud Powell’s chromatic tripletFreedom and your own voice
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 162 of Things I Learned from Bear Harris. And today I thought we could discuss a beautiful Bud Powell phrase, something that he does on one of his tunes. I’m not sure if it’s his tune, but sometimes it’s called Crazyology and sometimes it’s called Bud’s Bubble. This one is called Bud’s Bubble and that’s, you know. that rhythm changes, which has this weird thing in the middle,
- 0:35which goes to F sharp major. And actually, Bud doesn’t even solo on that. Bud just solos playing that rhythm changes. But this is on his version called Bud’s Bubble. And in the bridge, which is just a rhythm changes bridge, G7 up and down, G7 up and down, C7 up and down, F7 up and down. He does a really interesting thing. He plays a thing, and he plays it three times. He plays it on the last three dominants. So not on D7, but on G7 he plays starting from the third to the flat seventh. So this to this, but he does it as a triplet, totally chromatic, so that you
- 1:13start the triplet on the third, triplet, triplet, bomb, and then the last note, the flat seventh, is on the downbeat of the next beat. So, and then he does the same thing for C7. does the same exact thing for F7. This is super hip. Now, what most people would do is say, okay, I can do this from now on, so I’m going to just... Okay, now I’m going to learn how to do it in this key.
- 1:47This. Which is great. You should know it. That’s fine. But here’s the difference between the way I think everybody else teaches and the way Barry used to teach. is that Barry would take a thing like this, or let’s do it in F7, okay? So I’m doing it from the 3rd to the flat 7th using the triplet. Now, Barry would probably say, take that up the scale. So you ask yourself, well, how could I do that? Because this is a flat 5th, right? So how would I be able to do that?
- 2:20There’s no other flat 5th in the key of F7. It’s just there from the 3rd to the flat 7th. But if you look at this as it’s the lowest note and the highest note of a triad. So here’s our triad. So here’s all our triads. Same thing down. Here’s our triads in F7. We have to know all those. So we can look at that as the lowest note and the highest note of a triad that he then is filling with chromatics so that you get triple it, triple it, and then right on the next beat.
- 2:54Triple it, triple it, three. Triple it, triple it, three, which is really pretty. So now you’d have to be able to do that from every degree. So if we start on F, we’re going to go F, A, C. Now here’s the problem. The measurement is slightly different. It’s a perfect fifth. So now if I wanted to put all the chromatics in, listen to what happens. It doesn’t work. See, triple it, triple it. Now I messed up. So what you have to do is adjust it. So it’s funny because I was talking to Thomas about this yesterday, and I said it could be a lot of things. It could be you just go chromatic, but you leave out one chromatic.
- 3:35So in other words, I have to go totally chromatic from this to this, but you leave out one of the chromatics in between. So it could be like I did F, F sharp, G, and then I left out the chromatic between G and A, and then just did A chromatic to C. So I did, which is really pretty. That’s a nice phrase to listen to. That’s a beautiful phrase. So you should know how to do it from the root. Now see what Thomas said was, oh, I like to just leave out the first half step. So I’ll leave out the first chromatic.
- 4:11So instead of playing F, F sharp, G, I like to play F, G, and then go totally chromatic from there. So that’s interesting. F, G, G sharp, A, totally chromatic to the C. That’s interesting. So we’re going to get back to that. So here’s the one that Bud Powell did from the third to the flat seventh, which works perfectly because it’s a flat fifth. But now a perfect fifth, we say, or works great. The next triad would be G, B flat, and D.
- 4:47So I have to do it G to D. So let’s do Thomas’ one where we just leave out the first chromatic. That’s nice. Or I would probably do that one. Or maybe I would say... Maybe. Either way. But you’ve got to leave one chromatic out. You see? So now you’ve got... Or... Let’s see. Or... Or this one. Those are really nice. Now the next one. We already did. That’s the one that Bud did. That’s totally chromatic. now we have a B flat to the the are the triad which a B flat D F so now we’re
- 5:25gonna play B flat to F totally chromatic let’s leave out the first one that’s nice but I like this maybe I put in the first one and leave out the second one that’s nice too whichever fingering feels right I really think because you’re going by it so fast now the key is though you got a probably stick with one and really practice that one. Okay. Okay. So now the next one would be another perfect fifth. So the same idea, let’s use Thomas’s. Let’s leave out the first half step from, so it’s the chord up from the fifth or the, sorry, try it up from the fifth, which is going to give
- 6:04you C, E flat, G. So let’s not put it between C and D, let’s say. That’s a nice one. Okay. Now the next one, which is going to be D to A. So that’s also a perfect fifth. So let’s leave out the first one. Or let’s not leave out the first one. I left out the second one. That’s a nice one too. The next one, another perfect fifth. Let’s leave out the first one. Or let’s not leave out the first one and now another perfect fifth or what would the other one be that’s probably the one I would
- 6:48do but if I was here I might do this okay now you got the next one which is we’ll leave out the first one next one back to the further and then you back to the first one so now these are interesting so if I said why And then. Oh, next one.
- 7:25Next one. Now, down is going to be interesting. Should we follow the same rule? Here’s our first fifth down. We’ll start on C. We’ll go C down to F. Should we use the first one? Let’s watch what leaving out the first one sounds like. That’s nice. Or I like this. I like leaving out the second one. This one.
- 7:58Same one. This one. This. Oh, sorry. This. Those are great. So you see how we take a thing and we say, okay, we got to figure out how to do that. Now, the next thing is you have to be able to figure out how to solo using it. So if we take the bridge to rhythm changes. Then we might say.
- 8:38There it is. See, I got to get these in my hands. But what if we do this one? We’ll do this one. From this. We’ll do that one. So we’ll say it. Let’s start again. That is a pretty one.
- 9:16You could even start on that. Watch. Let’s see. How about if we did all these? Oh, the diminishes are easy
- 9:48because they’re always a flat fifth away, so it’s always going to be chromatic. Those are great. Okay, let me do one going up. Oh, I’m sorry, I want to do it up. Those are great. So you see how you take a Bud Powell thing
- 10:22or a Charlie Parker thing or a Sonny Rollins thing. Now to me, those are the people that are worthy of like figuring it out what they’re thinking because those are the creators. Those were our creators. So those are the ones that you say, there must be something about what they’re doing, whether it’s rhythmically, whether it’s note choice, and most of the time it’s both, rhythmically with note choice. But see, now you can take a thing like Bud did and do it from every degree. That’s a really nice change of rhythm too.
- 11:00That’s great. And I know I always struggle. Now you know what’s funny, Thomas and I were talking about this too. without adding half steps, there’s two spots you can do it, or there’s a couple of spots. Like, let’s say I just want to go tonic to seven. That actually works out perfect for a triplet. Watch. So that’s nice, too. So watch, if I took the bridge to rhythm changes and I said, let’s see. that time I started on the third
- 11:42some of them I started on tonic some of them I started on third but look tonic to seven or second to tonic third to second so if we said ah You instantly can do it. You see? So this was the blessing that I had to study with Barry, is that he didn’t just tell us, you know,
- 12:16here’s this beautiful Bud Powell phrase, let’s learn how to play it in every key. Which, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with that. But what happens is, then you become a player that just develops a series of here’s my bud pal phrase here’s my sonny rollin phrase here’s my john coltrane phrase and you kind of piece them together and then that tries to make um a coherent solo which i feel like it never does it doesn’t it still needs you some of you and the whole idea of improvising is you have to learn within a certain framework of how to voice how you have to find your own voice and but you don’t find it by just disregarding what the masters left us
- 12:57and also you don’t you don’t do it by just saying I’m gonna copy what the masters did it’s a language so we have to learn the language and then we have to learn to put our own words together our own sentences together our own paragraphs together our own page we have to be able to do that and I feel like Barry was the greatest that showing us what they left us and what we can do with it you know so anyway enjoy working on your triplets using scale sometimes and sometimes using half step rules take care