Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 10: Movement

Movements in the first four bars of the blues

Episode 7 · 13:06 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris goes beyond the scales for a C blues to the movements Barry hears in its first four bars: the tritone substitute, I to IV minor, IV to sharp IV diminished, the relative minor and a cycle of fourths. Barry wants soloists to play these movements rather than stack a scale on each chord, and Chris plays a short example of each.

Step by step

  1. 0:34The scales for bars 1 to 4 of a C blues are C7 up, F7 up, C7 up and down, but players like Bird and Coleman Hawkins play movements over them
  2. 1:12The plain movement: phrases on C7, then F7, then C7 again
  3. 1:43The tritone rule: you may play the dominant three whole steps away, as long as it is going home a fourth higher
  4. 2:26So bar 4 can be F sharp 7 leading into F7 in bar 5: C7, F7, C7, F sharp 7
  5. 3:22I to IV minor: C, C7, F, F minor, with F minor thought of as B flat 7; practise the line C, B flat, A, A flat
  6. 5:15C7, then F6, F sharp diminished, and back to C6 with the fifth in the bass
  7. 7:10Through the relative minor: C moves toward A minor by way of the dominant on the third, then C7 again into F
  8. 8:14With the third in the bass, F7 runs in fourths: B flat 7, E flat 7, A flat 7, D flat 7, F sharp 7, then back to F at bar 5
  9. 9:44Barry can spend an hour on C7 into F sharp 7 alone: play movements, not a scale stacked on each chord
  10. 12:16Practise each movement on its own, then in the common blues keys: C, F and B flat

Barry’s own words on this

10.1 Be a movement player13.1 The blues the Barry way8.5 The tritone10.7 Movements classical pianists know

In the course

The tritoneBe a movement playerI to IV minorIV6, raised IV diminished, IMajor to the relative minorThe blues the Barry waySmall things

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 7 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. Today I thought it would be nice to maybe get a little more in detail about certain things. So for the first episode we did a blues, I think it was in C. So instead of just talking about the scales for the blues, we’ll try to get into the way that Barry looks at things, or the way that I interpret that he looks at things, in terms of the first four bars. So the first four bars of the blues,
  2. 0:34we did the scales, we said it was C7 up, F7 up, and then C7 up and down. Okay, so those can be the scales for your basic four-bar blues. Twelve-bar blues, but just the first four bars. But there are a lot of other movements that go on that the piano player is playing, that other saxophone players are playing when they solo over it. Bird, Coleman Hawkins, all those great players have played what’s called movements, what Barry refers to as movements, which is what you’re trying to do as a soloist.
  3. 1:12So to give you an example, the first example would be to just play some phrases for C7, play some phrases for F7, and then back to C7 again. So that’s an example of one movement. Let’s just do that. So if we say one, two, one, two, three. Okay, that was the first four bars. Now, let’s talk about what’s other movements that you can play there.
  4. 1:47The first thing that maybe we can look at is Barry talks about the tritone. So the rule for the tritone is this. you can play a dominant scale, a tritone or a flat fifth or three whole steps away from the chord that you’re playing as long as it’s going home a fourth, a fourth higher. So in this case, we’re playing C7. We’re going home, what he calls home, a fourth higher to F7. So if that’s the case, we can play, if we were going to look at the scales, we could play C7.
  5. 2:26F7, and C7 up. Now F sharp 7 up. So I’ll play those again. C7, F7, C7, F sharp 7. Now you’re back to, which is the 5th and 6th bar. But anyway, so now if you were going to try to solo using those, Let me see if I can do one, two, one. So I use the F-7 to get back to F-7.
  6. 3:10So there’s an example of using that. Another movement that he uses, and of course, I’m just trying to show you these fast. There’s a million different ways to approach it. The next movement is, sometimes you hear the bass player play. So you’ll hear him play. That’s a very important movement. What Barry says that movement is, is it’s C major, C7, what would be F major, and then F minor, or how he would refer to it, because he always refers to it from the dominant, you could say the flat 7 dominant,
  7. 3:58which in this case, in this key, would be B flat 7. So the way that you would practice that is practice moving from, let’s say, the 1, then to the flat 7th, to the 3rd of the 4 major, and then to the flat 3rd of the 4 minor, or the 7th of the flat 7 dominant. So when he thinks, in this instance, Fm7, the scale that he’s thinking of is usually Bb7 scale. So let’s try to do something with that.
  8. 4:37So let’s see, one, two, one, two, three, oh, let’s see, one, two, three. And I even threw in the tritone. But anyway, that’s playing a movement. That’s playing 1 to 1 dominant, to 4 major, to 4 minor, or to 4 major to flat 7 dominant. Those are playing movements. So he’s constantly talking about playing a movement, not just playing scales, playing a movement.
  9. 5:13So that’s another movement. Another one is a lot of times you’ll hear this. Now what that he talks about is this is all C7. Now when it gets to here, it’s F6. F sharp diminished to C6. so that movement is so if you’re gonna play that you should play those movements also so one exercise that he
  10. 5:51used to have us do was something like let’s see So let me do that one again. Let’s see. So I’m just starting on the third of the C. Anyway, so that’s, again, the first four bars, and that’s this movement, which would be the one, one dominant, to the four, to the sharp, four diminished,
  11. 6:29or that flat three diminished that he refers to sometimes too. And then back to the one again, but with the fifth and the bass. So that’s another movement that he plays. Now we could do a few more on those. Let’s see if we did, starting from the fifth. So there it was. one, two, three, and... So that’s another movement that he uses, which is, again, the one, four,
  12. 7:08sharp four, diminished, back to the one again. That’s another movement. Another movement that happens in the blues sometimes is, let’s see, the one, and then, like, it’s going to the relative minor, So you play the 7 to the 3 dominant to the 6, down my half step. Then back to 1 dominant, then to the 4. So that happens too. So you have to be able to adapt to that change. So let’s try that one. Anyway, that’s one way to play it.
  13. 7:46Let’s try another one. Oh, sorry, sorry. Anyway, that’s another movement that he plays that we work on in class all the time. Another one is, there’s one more, oh, the one that I rarely play because I have to really work it out. But sometimes he plays the third and the bass, then when he gets to F7, he starts moving in fourths.
  14. 8:33So we play F7 to Bb7 to Eb7 to Ab7 to Db7 to Gb7 or in this instance F-sharp7 and then you back to F for the fifth bar. So it would sound like this. So, and then those are changes that you have to play on.
  15. 9:05So, usually, I mean, I don’t have that many of those together, but if I’m going to play it, let’s see, one, two, one, two. Anyway, but that’s the idea behind those. So that was even another way to approach. And that’s just the first four bars of the blues. So if you really see it, if you really start to look at those changes,
  16. 9:44just the very first one that we looked at, which was C7, then to F7, then to C7, and then to F sharp 7. I tell you, honestly, I’ve been in class where Barry has gone over playing just C7 running it into F-sharp 7, we can practice that for an hour. Just all the different pretty ways. So, you see, this is the thing that I think, in my opinion, that a lot of players are missing.
  17. 10:19And that is a lot of people have different scales, and they say, okay, you stack this scale on this chord, you stack this scale on that chord. But Barry plays movements, and not only does he play movements, but he gets the furthest in detail in those particular movements than I’ve ever seen anybody deal with. So I’ve never felt the need to study with anybody else because just the things that he’s shown me, I’ll never get to all of them. There’s just, there’s so many different ways. And that’s kind of why I wanted to share these videos because, you know, I’m not the greatest player in the world and there are a lot of other really good players.
  18. 10:56but just imagine if we all worked on these little movements how good the music could be we could really make it something special not that it isn’t special but we could even maybe propel it to the next level because the thing that Barry has done is he’s laying it all out for us it’s just up to us to really work on and to try to get it together so anyway those are the different movements in the first four bars of the blues just to recap it’s the 1 then going to the 4 then the 1 again or the 1 going to the 4 going to the 1 then the tritone of the 1 dominant which is F sharp 7 and then we did the 1 to the 4 major to the 4 minor then we did
  19. 11:44the one to the four six or four major to the sharp four diminishing then back to the one and then we did the one the one going to the relative minor which in this case would be a minor and then playing one dominant again which happens to and then we did the one that’s I find the hardest which is the one where we start going in fourths Anyway, those are all the different ways. I mean, I’m sure there are other ways.
  20. 12:16Please leave a comment underneath if you know of any other ways. I’m sure there are other ways, too, but those are the ones just primarily to practice on. And when you start to think about practicing them, just each one of those, and then practice them in different keys that you play the blues in. C is a common one, but F is really common. B-flat is common. so just think about all the different things you could work on with those different movements and that’s just the first four bars of the blues so anyway I hope you enjoyed that little little example of the first four bars of the blues and yeah enjoy practicing them and I’ll see you next time for episode 8
  21. 12:56which I’m not sure we’ll do yet but we’ll we’ll see anyway thanks again enjoy