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

There’s more to it than 6th diminished

Episode 106 · 11:19 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris objects to Barry being labelled ‘the sixth diminished guy’: Barry had four scales of chords, not one or two. He rebuilds all four from Barry’s creation story, the chromatic scale splitting into two whole-tone scales and then three diminished chords, and shows each scale is two diminished chords blended into a chord plus the third diminished left untouched.

Step by step

0:00Why this video: Barry’s harmony is usually reduced to major and minor sixth diminished, which leaves out half of it or more.
1:09Start with the 12 chromatic notes, which split equally into two whole-tone scales of six notes each.
1:20Take two notes from each whole-tone scale to make a diminished chord; this gives only three: C, D flat and D diminished.
2:38Major sixth diminished: keep G and E from D flat diminished and C and A from C diminished to make C6; the untouched D diminished completes the scale.
3:50Minor sixth diminished: keep only G from D flat diminished and C, A and E flat from C diminished to make C minor 6, again with D diminished.
4:37Dominant seventh diminished: keep G, B flat and E from D flat diminished and just C from C diminished to make C7, with D diminished.
5:39Seventh flat five diminished: B flat and E from D flat diminished plus C and G flat from C diminished make C7 flat 5, with D diminished.
6:57Practise all four and apply them to every diatonic chord: a C major 7 can take C6 diminished or G6 diminished, the six on the fifth.
8:49Ask why: the extra note is not just a flat six added to the major scale; it comes from the three diminished chords.

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

C62:38

Cm63:50

C
E♭
G
A

C74:25

C
E
G
B♭

C7b55:39

C
E
G♭
B♭

Barry’s own words on this

9.8 The 7th diminished and 7th flat 5 diminished scales 9.3 The major 6th diminished scale (a major scale with one more note)9.5 The minor 6th diminished scale and its diminished partner 2.3 The three diminished seventh chords (‘the children’)

In the course

Barry’s creation theory Barry’s four scales of chords Freedom and your own voice

Transcript

0:00Hello and welcome to episode 106 of Things I Learned from Barry Harris. And today I just wanted to make an explanation video about Barry’s scales of chords, his four scales of chords. The reason for this video is I’ve seen a lot of YouTube channels talk about Barry’s harmonic theory. And when they do, they usually refer to it as Barry Harris, the six diminished guy or the main six diminished guy or even sometimes people go as far as saying major six diminished and minor six diminished and that is correct the the part is they are
0:39omitting either 75% or 50% of his concepts which are you’re really missing out and also if you just think of it as those two scales of chords you don’t really understand where it came from and understanding where it came from is also leads to understanding his brilliance of coming up with this because it’s really brilliant. It’s beyond brilliant. So I just wanted to clear a few things up. So he talks about, here’s his, the universe begins with the 12 notes of the chromatic scale. Those 12 notes can split up
1:20equally into two whole tone scales. And the two whole tone scales are made up of six notes and six notes so there’s your 12. Equally six notes, six notes. Then you take two notes from one whole tone scale, two notes from another whole tone scale, and you get it diminished. Since there’s six notes for each, you can do it three times, which gives you these three diminishes, let’s say. C diminished, D flat diminished, and D diminished. Because once you do E flat diminished, you’re doing the same as C diminished it’s just the same notes repeated again so those are your three
1:58basic diminishes C diminished D flat diminished and D diminished now here’s where the brilliance comes in now you have we have to learn where does these scales of chords from come from now most people mistakenly say well it’s just the major bebop scale which is completely incorrect it’s I understand that that’s how some people labeled it but it’s completely incorrect the second thing that that people say is oh it’s a major scale with this added flat six in it which it is that is true but it’s not where it comes from so let’s talk about
2:38where it comes from because it’s really brilliant it’s brilliant so yeah again you have C diminished D flat diminished and D diminished now those are the three diminishes that we’re going to create the scales the scales of chords from okay So we’ll start with the D-flat diminished, and we will say D-flat diminished, we’re going to keep the G and the E of the D-flat diminished. But maybe we’ll also play C-diminished, but we’ll use the C and the A of the C-diminished. So here’s our C-diminished, here’s our D-flat diminished. But we’re going to say G and E from the D-flat diminished, and C and A from the C-diminished.
3:17Now you have a C-6. So we took two notes from C diminished, two notes from D flat diminished to create this chord. C6. Perfect. Now, the only diminished that we didn’t touch was the D diminished. So we started off with these three diminishes. We took two notes from one diminished, two notes from another, and the one that we didn’t touch, the diminished that we didn’t touch, was left over the D diminished. And there’s all the scales of chords right there. C6, D diminished. that are repeated over and over again.
3:50There’s a C6 diminished scale. That’s the first scale. The second one would be taking the same premise where now you have the D-flat diminished, the C diminished, and the D diminished. And let’s say instead of keeping two notes from the D-flat diminished, let’s just keep one note. Let’s keep the G. Now let’s lower. Let’s take three notes of the C diminished, which would be the C, the A, and the E-flat. So there’s three notes from the C diminished, and there’s one note from the D flat diminished. That gives us this chord, C minor 6.
4:25The only diminished that we didn’t touch was the D diminished. So now we have C minor 6, D diminished. There’s our second scale of chords. So that’s the second one. Then we have the same premise. but let’s say I just want to take I’m going to keep three notes of the D-flat diminished and I just want to take one note of the C diminished the C so now I have the G B-flat and the E of the D-flat diminished but I want to take just the C from the C diminished and that gives us C7 so now I have one note of the C diminished three notes of the D-flat diminished and the
5:07diminished we didn’t touch was the D diminished. So that gives us this second scale. Four notes of C7, four notes of D diminished, and we do the inversions of them, we have all this beautiful stuff. C7 diminished, there’s our third scale of chords. But do you see how it’s related to the first two scales of chords? It was made the same way. So now we’ll take, let’s take again, two notes of the of Db diminished, but this time
5:39we’ll take the Bb and the E. We’ll keep those two. But I also want two notes of the C diminished. So we’ll take C and Gb. So these two notes of the C diminished, these two notes of the Db diminished, and that gives us C7b5. Again, the only diminished we didn’t touch was D diminished. So think about how beautiful this is. Now C7b5 diminished. Beautiful. That’s his four scales of chords.
6:17And how they’re created is so beautiful and so wonderful. And yet it’s the thing that everybody who wants to talk about it skips. Now, I don’t know if they’re skipping it because they don’t know it. or if they’re skipping it because it’s just it might be too long to explain but I think it’s pretty good to explain it I think it makes it even it gives you a lot of depth in terms of understanding who he is as this and and what this this harmonic theory is which is really incredible I’ve seen a lot of videos about this this I’m telling you that this is the thing we need to understand he
6:57has four scales of chords not one scale a chord not two scales of chords he is not the six diminished person he is not the major six minor six diminished person he has four eight note scales those four and those four are super useful and you use them all the time now which ones do I practice the most or have I practice the most the major six diminished the minor six diminished I have those are the two that I practice the most but now I’m into the dominant 7 diminished and dominant 7 flat 5 diminished, and I’m telling you, they are equally wonderful. And you apply these to all of your diatonic chords, all of them, every one of them.
7:39And I’m going to make a video about that, maybe a part two to this, about how to apply all four, I might have made a video about this before, but all four of Barry’s scales of chords to the diatonic chords, which is really wonderful. And then you start to see it’s limitless. if you see if we’re in the key of c and you see a c major seven on the sheet music that doesn’t just mean c major seven that could mean that’s coming from the c6 diminished scale which means all this beautiful stuff that you’ve practiced you could put in you don’t have to just take the four notes of c major seven also you could do g6 diminished over that c major seven because it’s a six on the fifth
8:17but there are so many ways to look at it and it’s just brilliant his harmonic concepts are so brilliant and to just whittle it down to just, it’s a major scale with a flat six in it. That’s a quick way to explain what notes to use, perhaps, but then there has to be something more in-depth about it, because where did it come from? Where did it come from? Did Barry just add an extra note to the Western scale? Why did he do, to the major scale, why did he do that? Why would he do that?
8:49See, that’s the other problem. We don’t ask why enough. We should ask why. Why does this happen? What’s the reasoning behind that? Oh, Barry Harris made a major scale, but he added a flat six. Why? Where did that come from? Why did he add a flat six? Why didn’t he add a flat fifth? Why didn’t he add a flat third? Where does this come from? But when you see it through the three diminishes from starting with his creation theory, you see how much sense it makes. And there are videos of him talking about this over and over again, which is why it really, it bugs me that people don’t at least put in a little effort to understand what his theory is.
9:29I think his theory is the, his harmonic theory is the most misunderstood and incorrectly talked about on YouTube than anybody else’s. I just think it is. And I think we owe it to him, since he’s been donating his whole life to teaching this stuff to us, we owe it to him to at least get that part right. Now, for us to go and practice these four scales of chords and to be able to play them as beautifully as he plays them, that’s another thing entirely, and that’s going to take us all the rest of our lives to be able to do.
10:05But the least we owe him is to be able to get at least the theory of it right. And it’s not that difficult. It’s not that difficult. So I want everybody to not only practice their major six diminished and their minor six diminished, but also their dominant seven diminished and their dominant seven flat five diminished. And do not be fooled by people that are saying that, oh, Barry Harris is the six diminished guy with minor six diminished. I don’t care if a hundred people say it. It’s not correct. It is not correct. Because all you have to do is look at any one of those Barry Harris videos,
10:41and you can see him talking about different things and where they come from. And it’s super important that we at least get that much of it right. We have to. We owe it to him to get that much of it right. He’s been teaching this stuff since the 50s. He’s been talking about this stuff since the 50s. We owe it to him to at least get that much of it right. And then the practicing part is for us to have to deal with. So until next time, enjoy practicing Barry Harris’s four scales of chords. Not one, not two, but four.
11:16Until next time.