Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 8: Thinking dominant

Practising with a friend: diminished runs with Thomas Eccles

Episode 131 · 12:45 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

With guitarist Thomas Eccles as his guest, Chris turns Barry’s creation theory into runs. One diminished chord gives four family dominants; for each, a triad with one diminished note added (the flat 9) becomes a three-octave run on the guitar in three inversions, giving twelve runs that can be swapped, set against family chords in the background, or chained together.

Step by step

  1. 0:00Chris and Thomas recall Barry’s creation theory: chromatic scale, two whole-tone scales, three diminished chords.
  2. 0:50Lower each note of the diminished a half step to get the four family dominants: G7, B flat 7, D flat 7 and E7.
  3. 1:27Take a G triad and add one diminished note, A flat: G, A flat, B, D.
  4. 2:11Run it up three octaves, three notes on one string and one on the next (E and A, D and G, B and E strings), and hear it over G7.
  5. 3:25Next inversion, from the third: B, D, G, A flat, with two notes on each string.
  6. 4:33From the fifth: D, G, A flat, B, with one note on the first string and three on the next.
  7. 6:00Apply it to the other family dominants, starting with E: open E, its flat 9, third and fifth, in three octaves and inversions.
  8. 7:25Play the B flat run (heard over G7 it has a sharp 9), and the D flat run from the fifth.
  9. 8:42Four dominants times three inversions gives 12 runs; pick the one closest to where you are on the neck.
  10. 9:20Set a run against a family chord in the background, such as G7 with A flat minor 6, or chain runs as a student did, going from the G run into the D flat run.

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

G71:27
𝄞♭
C3GBC4DA♭
  1. G
  2. A♭
  3. B
  4. D

Barry’s own words on this

8.3 Four dominants from every diminished chord2.3 The three diminished seventh chords (‘the children’)8.4 Playing with the family6.4 Arpeggio inversions and permutations

In the course

Barry’s creation theoryThe family of dominantsTriad plus one diminished noteLearning together

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 131 of Things I Learned from Barry Harris. And today I have a very important person with me. One of my biggest influences, Thomas Eccles is here. I’m so happy to be here. Hi, everybody. I’m here with one of my biggest influences, Chris Parks. Yeah, we’re having a blast. We’re just talking about music and practicing different things. So I thought it’d be a nice idea to just make a quick video of this thing that I was talking about over at Open Studio, the Open Studio class that I’m teaching at. And it was relating to Barry’s creation theory, where he talks about the 12 tones of the chromatic scale, which then break apart into the two whole tone scales, six notes and six notes.
  2. 0:50then it breaks apart into the three diminishes and then from the three diminishes you take a diminished and you lower note a half-step one at a time you get the four dominant family members so those are the things that we’re going to talk about so we decided to look at B diminished and we said if you lower one note at a time you’re going to get four different dominants Tom what are the four dominance you get for that? Four different dominants are G7, so from from D diminished we get G7, we get Bb7, we get Db7, and we get E7. Correct, so that’s the ones that we’re going to be looking at and I
  3. 1:27thought it’s a nice idea is to say well we were talking about an open studio what does that mean for us in terms of runs or doing some sort of lines so I thought about this idea of taking just a triad, let’s say we’ll take the G triad, G, B, D, and now instead of when you lower a note, you get the dominant. So now I’m going to raise my note in the G to A-flat, and there’s your A-flat diminished. So obviously B diminished is also A-flat diminished, is also F diminished, is also D diminished. So all I’m going to play is my G triad, but with my one diminished note, which is going to be the A-flat.
  4. 2:11And then what I say would be nice is if we say let’s do three octaves of the same thing. So I was talking to Tom about this and I think we both decided that a nice fingering is to play well at least for the G three notes on the E string and one note on the A string. So we said. And then we did the same thing on the next octave which happens to be on the D string and G string so the same idea three notes on the D string one note on the G string and then the same idea on the B string and the E string three notes on the B string
  5. 2:52one note on the string so when you do it together And listen how pretty this is over a G7. So I’m going to do a little... Beautiful. So now, the next thing that we said was, well, if you’re doing it on G, then we have to do every inversion of that.
  6. 3:25So, again, we have four notes. We have the root, the third, the fifth, but also we have the flat 9th. So now we’re going to do the next inversion. So we said root, flat 9th, third, fifth. So now we have to do third, fifth, root, flat 9th. So that’s what we’re going to do. Exactly. And what it looks like on guitar, at least, is it’s still going to be, now it’s going to be two notes on the E string, two notes on the A string. And then you’re going to do that. two octaves. Which is pretty.
  7. 3:58So that’s... I like that. Good. So now let’s do the... I’ll do another... That’s... Yeah. Beautiful. Nice. Nice. Okay, so now we’ll do it from the fifth. So the real quick so just so so real quick and when then what what you said is that on the first one we have Is it
  8. 4:33So that’s three notes on the sixth string and one on the fifth string correct, but now we have two on the sixth string And want to on a fifth string correct exactly and now the next one starting from the fifth So the next inversion is going to be the fifth the root flat 9 and major 3rd. Now it’s going to have one note on the E string and three notes on the A string. So do that one. Like that. And I can do it without the strings. Love it. Like that. Now let’s do another little. Beautiful. Beautiful. So these are all little runs that you could do and it’s just keeping the idea in mind of the diminished that it
  9. 5:18came from and now where does the rest of the family come from this is where it gets interesting as Tom said before we have G7 we have B-flat 7 we have D-flat 7 and we have E7 and that’s you know easy way to show that just take one of the diminished and just take turns low rate each one of the notes so you can take this nice diminished so now that we know that all those dominance come from that one diminished we can take the concept of this line that we just did in kind of
  10. 6:00three different fingerings and we can apply them to all the rest of them so So for instance, if we take, let’s say, let’s do the one from E now. So now if we’re going to take the one from E, we have an open string, we’re going to play the open string, flat 9, 3rd, and the 5th, and then we’re going to do that 3 octaves. So maybe I’ll play something behind. Oh, I’ll do it first. Yeah, do it. Just like that. Well, I’m doing it all. The first thing is gonna be
  11. 6:49Yeah, I like that too One more time for me There it is So here is a pretty G. Love it. Now, if we did the same thing for E, now we have to learn the same two other inversions. Besides the root inversion, you do it from the third, which is going to give you two notes on one string and two notes on the next string.
  12. 7:25Or you can do it from the fifth, which is going to give you one note on the first string and then the next string you’re going to do three notes. And so on. So if we just did it for E, let’s do B flat. Can you do the one in B flat? The one for B flat or one for... The one for B flat. The one for B flat and starting from where? Starting from B flat. Starting from here? Yeah. Pretty. That’s a pretty one. Yeah, exactly. So now that gives you that beautiful sound which happens to have a sharp 9 in it. It’s got a flat 9.
  13. 8:00It’s beautiful. Then there’s one more, which is the D-flat one. So do it from the fifth maybe? Yeah, let’s go ahead and play it from the fifth. So that would be one note, three notes. Yeah, so let’s try that. I’ll intro that. Yes. So pretty! So you see how these work. They can be used all the time and you can replace one with the next one and it’s just a beautiful concept to just get. So
  14. 8:42if you think about it you have the four family members G7, the Bb7, the Db7, and the E7. Then if you think about that you have three of each. You got the one from the root, the one from the fifth, a third, and then the one from the fifth. So now you have 12. 12 little different runs that you can do. That’s amazing. But then if you think about it, you start to you start to think where it is on your instrument, where the dominant chord is that you’re playing, and what’s the closest little area. And I love it. Now, there was one thing of course that Tom and I, because we can never just stop on one little idea. The next thing that we talked about
  15. 9:20was looking at it at two minor sixes because... But hold up one second. Sure. There’s also the aspect we were looking at that’s really interesting about just even with doing this. I could play a background idea like on the G7 that doesn’t necessarily line up with which family member you’re doing. Correct. So let’s do an example. If I play, let’s say I play a G7 with an A flat minor 6 above it, which is going to give me a flat 9 and a sharp, a raise 5, 7. So now you could do, let’s say do the B flat one, which gives you a sharp 9.
  16. 10:02So do that one. Do that again. Sure. I mean that sounds great. That’s so nice. And then just. Exactly. That sounds so pretty. That’s beautiful. Yeah. Love it. Okay now. So now that means you have 12 things but then there’s the other permutations but combining it with the background. Oh. Which makes a different kind of color combination. Correct. And then to throw another thing in the mix. there was when I did it in class there’s a piano player named Allie and she came up with this beautiful idea she said well Chris can we combine so what she did was and she’s a piano player but
  17. 10:45she did it perfectly too she did the one from G from the root now the one from G from the root you play G A flat B D now when you get to D she went down a half step and said because D flat’s a family member so she said Kim after we do the one in G can we do the one in D flat so then she did this I mean what a beautiful what a beautiful thing that she did yeah that got us thinking about combining different ones and it’s just
  18. 11:24there’s so much to do and the whole concept came from okay we all know all living in Barry’s world of harmony we all know the family members and we all know that those four dominance come from the diminished but it has to mean something to you musically right and that’s the thing that’s what I kept getting tripped up with I could recite the creation theory over and over again but the thing is what does it mean to you as a player and what you start to discover is you just start thinking about it and it can mean a lot of different things now not a
  19. 11:59not a spoiler alert but I’m gonna give a spoiler alert we’re gonna find out things perhaps in one of Tom’s upcoming videos about putting the things together as opposed to just playing them separate notes yes which might be something that’s but anyway we wanted to keep this short yes but I hope you enjoyed episode 131 of things I learned from Barry Harris but very special episode because this could be titled also things I’ve learned from Tom Eccles until next time appreciate
  20. 12:40everybody everybody