Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 10: Movement

Creating lines on the movement from I to the flat III diminished

Episode 41 · 15:01 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris takes a less-played movement, the I chord to the diminished on the flat third, in G, and shows how Barry hears that diminished: as a diminished chord carrying the roots of its four dominants rather than a half-whole scale. He builds lines from those dominants’ arpeggios, the III chord’s triads, diminished patterns and surrounding notes, and urges practising one movement for hours rather than pasting a scale onto each chord.

Step by step

  1. 0:36The movement in G: a bar each of G major, B flat diminished (the flat III diminished), A minor and D7
  2. 1:45Over B flat diminished, play the diminished with a half step below each of its notes, starting from G
  3. 2:18Treat A minor to D7 as just the D7 scale up and down
  4. 4:08Lower each note of B flat diminished in turn to find its four dominants; their roots form the diminished a half step below, which is why Barry won’t call it a half-whole scale
  5. 5:20Use one of those dominants: a G flat major arpeggio played going into the diminished
  6. 6:01Use the III chord in place of the I: B minor holds a B minor and a D major triad, so run D major into G flat major
  7. 7:13Play patterns on the diminished that skip notes instead of running it straight up
  8. 8:37Hear how this flat III diminished differs from the familiar I-VI diminished, and slip it into ordinary turnarounds now and then
  9. 10:59Practise just this one movement, with two beats, four beats or two bars on each chord
  10. 12:43Barry’s chromatic idea: come in a half step above the next diminished note and surround it

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

Line4:45
𝄞♭♭
C4ACE♭G♭
  1. A
  2. C
  3. E♭
  4. G♭

Barry’s own words on this

10.1 Be a movement player8.3 Four dominants from every diminished chord8.6 The diminished scale as diminished chord + four dominant roots6.5 Surrounding notes (approach from above and below)

In the course

Barry’s chromatic scaleA minor 7 is two triadsSurroundsThe family of dominantsThe diminished scale: a diminished plus four tonicsBe a movement playerI to flat III diminishedSmall thingsPut it in a song

Transcript

  1. 0:03[Music] hello and welcome to episode 41 of things I’ve learned from Barry Harris today I thought we would stay on the idea of creating lines using different movements and since the last episode episode 40 we dealt with this half step on three chord to the flat three minor in the two to the five I thought we would deal with another interesting movement that happens in songs which is not as played as much but is equally
  2. 0:36important and that’s the one chord to the flat three diminished and in this episode we’ll deal with the key of G so the gene would be G major is the one chord the flats re diminished would be B flat diminished five which is D seven the scales that you would think of if we were say because remember we have different lengths of time we can play it
  3. 1:09for we can play it for two beats apiece we could play it for four beats apiece will you play it for two measures of peace but in in this episode let’s just deal with one measure of the one chord one measure of the flat three diminished and one measure of the two and one measure of the five we think of it that way we could think of it as G major up now we got this diminished so we can play possibly one of berries what he calls well he doesn’t like to refer to
  4. 1:45it as the diminished scale but it’s the diminished with the tonics of the dominance the four tonics of the dominance so here’s our flat three diminished and let’s take it from the same note the G so we’re going to play a half step below G [Music] half step below G half step below B flat half step below D for blowing so here with your scales which is really pretty and then just the the a minor to D seven
  5. 2:18we already know if you’ve watched previous episodes this is gonna be these seven straight up and down and all the things that include that are included in D seven so I think the idea is or at least one of the things that Barry likes to focus on is okay let’s really get into the meat of things let’s not just play a scale into a scale let’s start to see all the differences and all the things the same and all the pretty ways we can approach some of those notes so let’s try that let’s just try to create some lines using those ideas maybe instead of going up a scale let’s go
  6. 2:52down the scale so let’s try that so let’s see if we say one two three four [Music] that’s okay that time I came down I put a half step between diminished or we could try just using a major arpeggio we could try maybe some five four three two
  7. 3:35rules so how would we do it if we said [Music] so every time it gets to this 1/3 up these notes or even which is that what some people call the diminished scale and Barry doesn’t like to refer to his hat as half step whole stuff the reason why he doesn’t like to refer to it as
  8. 4:08that I’ll just give you simple explanation is if the flat 3 diminishes B flat diminished we have to find the for dominance that are connected to that diminished so the way we find those four dominance is we lower one note of the diminution so if we lower the first time to finish now we have a 7 if we lower the second note in this particular scale drop to voice now we have a flood seven if we lower the third note now we have F sharp 7 or
  9. 4:45G flat so if we lower the 4th note now we have C 7 so here are 4 dominance that are connected to it a 7c 7d flat 7 and G flat 7 and if you notice those 4 notes also make up a diminished and that diminished happens to be a half step below the the flattery diminished so if we put all those notes together we get
  10. 5:20what sometimes people refer to as the diminished scale now the importance of knowing some of these things are I’ll just give you an example so one of the one of the dominance that is connected to this diminished is G flat so what’s a nice thing that sometimes people play is they’ll play a G flat major arpeggio going in with some of this so let’s see if I could do that so on to so there was an example of the
  11. 6:01G flat major arpeggio so let me try another one there’s another example of a G major arpeggio G flat major arpeggio so if I sit if I took them in again instead of the 1 chord sometimes you can use the 3 chord and all the important things that are on the 3 chord because the 3 chord like Berry says this three-chord consists of two
  12. 6:36different things it consists of a B minor triad and it also consists of a D major triad so if we think about it we can run something D major maybe into that G flat major so let’s try that that’s a nice one one two three four I even skipped and sometimes you could do that to another nice thing
  13. 7:13to do with diminished is you don’t just have to play the dimension you or just a diminished pattern up you can also play one pattern on it diminish would be instead of playing fourth no skipping off which is really pretty also let me see if I can work out one of those one two three there you go see that I don’t
  14. 7:55think it’s nice those are just jumping clef this another one you could jump to is instead of playing this note skipping this not playing this really pretty also which is farther screwing itself so it’s a six so let’s try one of those also a nice way to approach it
  15. 8:37but the reason why I’m pointing out this flattery diminished is because too often we know this sound which is just 1 to 6 and this diminished is a different diminishment so we’ve heard these type of phrases before 1 2 3 4 see we’ve heard that a million thought a million times we’ve heard that but do we really ever hear and that is a beautiful diminished that flat 3 diminished and
  16. 9:15what’s nice about that flat 3 diminished is you can kind of throw that in whenever you want also on a regular turnaround because remember most turnarounds are just 1 to 6 minor so all this stuff like is diminished that’s all things that you’re implying over that anyway so it’s totally fine if you want to just use a flat 3 diminished once in a while there so you could say ok gee that’s also one of the diminished notes so I could say see so I used it both time so don’t eat Bob the leader that
  17. 9:53was the diminish town so that’s a comment on another comment is the six the six so if I says I see wasn’t as nice but let’s say two three which is nice maybe I’ll try that for the major that’s nice too so that’s just the that the tonics of the dominance before you playing it diminished but do you see how
  18. 10:27this opens up all these millions of ideas and this is exactly the kind of thing that Barry does in class obviously on a much higher level than this and the lines that he’s creating are you know astronomically more beautiful but it’s the it’s it’s the idea is still the same which is how many different ways can you look at going from the one chord to the flat three diminished and we could spend we can spend hours in the class doing that couple of hours just working on those two things and just think about it if your home whatever instrument you
  19. 10:59play and you say you know what I think I’m gonna practice today I think I’m gonna practice my one chord to my flat three diminished I’m just gonna practice that maybe I’ll practice it for five hours today all the different little cool ways and I’ll do it where I’m doing it two beats of the one chord to two beats of the flat three diminished or maybe I’ll do four beats or maybe I’ll do two measures into two measures whichever you decide to do but this is what I mean don’t just copy and paste here’s a change here’s a change this scale you play for this this scale you
  20. 11:34play for this you have to learn to play movement Barre points that out all the time Coleman Hawkins says he played movement Barry Harris plays movement but Powell plays movement this is what playing movement is in order to have the ability to play movement so the first step is of course known what scales to play yeah that true but then making up beautiful hopefully beautiful creative ideas using those skills and having them sound like music not like a scale exercise which is also really hard to do really hard to do
  21. 12:07I mean there’s a million things you could do on diminishes all these there’s a nice one too where Barry likes to play just for example that’s his scale that he likes to play so hope the chromatics in between all the diminished balls so you basically get a chromatic scale
  22. 12:43but he likes to come a half step above the next diminished note and then surround it which is really nice so let’s try that works beautifully that’s a really nice one it didn’t quite work out in time but it’s still I made it right so one two [Music] that’s nice well let’s do the one that’s
  23. 13:21around this one oh man I mean this really makes me think about things too like all the things that I have to really practice you see them a little bit sloppy on some of those ideas but I actually have never played those ideas before let’s see and this is after me studying with him for over it’s since
  24. 13:571993 so you’re talking about 26 years and I’m still discovering things how to do with 1 2 flat 3 diminished that’s why I I know I’ve said it in other episodes but I really feel like his method is the most complete wonderful method you just have to let your imagination take over so if you decide and say to yourself okay well this week or today I’m just gonna practice 1 2 flat 3 diminished that’s it I’m not gonna do anything else I’m just gonna practice those 2 things and look at all the little connections
  25. 14:30between those two things so anyway I hope you enjoyed this episode episode 41 talking about moving from the one chord to the flat 3 diminished and I really appreciate the nice comments and the suggestions are fantastic and yeah I’m really enjoying this I’m coming up on the one-year mark pretty soon and I’ve had a great time so far so I’m hoping to keep these going anyway thanks and enjoy practicing