Chris Parks · Stage 13: Tunes as the curriculum
Creating lines from Bud Powell ideas
As he did with Charlie Parker phrases, Chris takes two small ideas he learned from Bud Powell’s solo on Perdido and turns them into scale practice. One is a short phrase he moves through every degree of F7 and B flat major. The other surrounds each note of a triad with half steps from below, which he applies to every triad of the major scale.
Step by step
- 0:04Perdido’s changes as Barry hears them: F7 up and down, B flat major down to the third of G, back to F7; the bridge is the rhythm-changes bridge D7, G7, C7, F7
- 1:15Learn Bud’s simple phrase on F7 (Barry hears C minor 7 to F7 as just F7), then start it from other degrees such as the sixth
- 2:40Bud plays it from the seventh of F7 and then from the tonic of B flat; play it on the B flat major scale too
- 3:33Run the phrase from every degree of the scale, then start lines from different points with Bud’s rhythm
- 5:15Second idea, on a G major triad: the half step below the root twice, then the half step below the third (B flat to B) and below the fifth; then invert it
- 6:20Use it on Perdido: over C minor, F7, B flat, G, apply it to the C minor triad, the important minor on the fifth of F7
- 7:52Practise it on every triad of B flat major: major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, and the diminished on the seventh
- 9:01Then take both ideas into E flat, A flat, D flat and the other keys
Barry’s own words on this
In the course
The scale every way: up and down, thirds, triads, chordsScale outlinesThe important minorHalf step belowDissect the masters’ phrasesBud Powell ideasRhythm changes
Transcript
- 0:04hello and welcome to episode 43 of things I’ve learned from Barry Harris today I thought we would talk about a an idea of blood pals that can maybe help you to practice things on the scale in the same way we did some Charlie Parker phrases maybe we’ll do some blood pal phrases today so the song that he is sowing on is a song called perdido where the first section is going to be f7 up and down then B flat major up and down actually down to the 3rd of G and then
- 0:42back again f7 up now so it’s really pretty it’s just a 2 to a 5 to 1 to 6 and repeats and then the bridge is nice the bridge is just the rhythm bridge which is d7 up and down g7 up and down c7 up and down and f7 oh yeah
- 1:15but there’s a particular phrase that he plays which is really pretty and simple on the scale I just wanted to to maybe take a look at it so the phrase that he uses if we’re thinking about f7 or C mine and a half 7 where Barry talks about just f7 he plays this second so now just think about that now if we did
- 1:52it on every degree of the scale if we started there and said then one started from the 6th of the f7 so it’s basically he started on the note went up 1/3 then just kept lowering this note but kept going back to the second so now we’re gonna do the same thing starting on the sixth go down to the second very pretty phrase but I think actually what
- 2:40he does is so he does the one from the seventh of the f7 but then he does the one from the tonic of the b-flat that’s actually a pretty thing to do let’s play it on B flat major let’s say [Music] sixth really really pretty now again if
- 3:33you want to change it around that’s totally fine but just from what he played he just did three of them now you could do the whole scale like that you could say did the same thing the second [Music] from the fifth from the sixth and from
- 4:19the seventh [Music] which is really beautiful so you come up with all different ways to phrase it so what if I said starting with starting on the of f7 ii and i said and his rhythm is so pretty he said really beautiful I just started lines starting from
- 5:15different points using the same idea though another thing he does is he likes to play he’ll take a major triad let’s say G major triad well let’s make it a major arpeggio let’s make it a triad so there’s our G major triad G B D what we’re gonna say is we’re gonna do a half step below that note but we’re gonna do
- 5:48it twice then do the half step below the third which is the B flat to B half step below the D so we got this I like to just hammer ball then we’ll invert [Music] so now if we were gonna do it which is really pretty now where would you put
- 6:20that so let’s say C minor f7 B flat G [Music] that time I did the I outlined this C minor so we got C minor f7 the important
- 6:53minor on the on the f7 is found on the fifth degree so I just did it on the C minor arpeggio or the C minor triad the C minor triad is so I do a now let’s invert [Music] invert so let’s see if I could do both let’s see I mean I’m doing it more exaggerated on those examples hmm but if
- 7:52you work it into your playing those are cool little things to do again just an example of something I heard but pal play I don’t know if he came up with it I don’t know if it was his but I’m giving him credit for it because he’s the one that I learned it from so two little examples of things that you can practice on a major scale so if you think about it your major scale you b-flat major scale you say the the the triad from the root is a major so we could easily do that on the triad the the triad from the second degree is a
- 8:28minor to try it from the third degree is a minor from the fourth degree is a major the 5th degree is a major from the 6th degree minor and from the 7th degree now here’s where it gets funny is it’s a minor 7 flat 5 or diminished or half diminished and then you back to the rudia so those are nice things to practice on them on
- 9:01the major scale and if we’re doing in b-flat you should be able to do it in E flat and a flat and D flat and all the different keys so just a quick little excerpt today hope to be getting back to making more videos more frequently summers a little bit tight but I appreciate you guys supporting me and following the channel and I hope you’re still enjoying it thanks again until next time enjoy episode 43 of Bud Powell phrasing ideas thanks