Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 10: Movement

Playing the movement from major to relative minor

Episode 34 · 17:07 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

The first of Chris’s episodes on what Barry calls movement: going from the I chord to its relative minor through the VII half-diminished and a III dominant. Chris reduces the movement to two scales, the major scale and the dominant scale whose third is the half-diminished, landing on the third of the dominant, then builds phrases with Barry’s half-step rules, pivots and 5-4-3 moves, first in a one-bar version (Confirmation in F) and then a two-bar one in E flat.

Step by step

  1. 0:05Movement means going from one chord to another; practise I to the relative minor (VI), which comes up in many standards
  2. 0:38In F the path is F major 6, E minor 7 flat 5 (the VII chord), A7 with a raised fifth (the III made dominant), then D minor
  3. 2:17With one bar of F and half a bar each of E half-diminished and A7, as in Confirmation: F major scale up to E, then the C7 scale down from B flat to C sharp, the third of A7
  4. 4:02First phrase: a triad up from F starting on the ‘and’ of one, C7 down, then up a diminished from the third of A7 and down to D minor
  5. 4:38To start the same idea on the beat, put in an eighth-note triplet so the chord tones still land right
  6. 6:24Hear C, the fifth of F, as the tonic of C7 and come down with the half step between C and B flat
  7. 7:50Use a pivot: start on a note and play the rest of the notes an octave lower instead of going up
  8. 9:11In E flat (There Will Never Be Another You) the movement is twice as long: two bars of E flat, a bar of D half-diminished, a bar of G7; play E flat major up and down, then B flat 7 up and down to the third of G7
  9. 11:34Try 5-4-3 phrases coming down the B flat 7 scale to the third of G7
  10. 13:19Anticipate the change: start on C, the sixth of E flat and second of B flat 7, and think B flat 7 all the way into G7

Barry’s own words on this

10.1 Be a movement player8.2 A half-diminished chord means the dominant whose third it is7.3 Getting through changes4.4 Scale outlines

In the course

Up, down, and up and downKnow it everywhere on the guitarScale outlinesUp and down to the third ofA half-diminished means the dominant whose third it isFeel how long each chord lastsHear the changes; know where you areAnticipate the next chordThe descending half-step rules for the dominantTriplets and the half-step rulesPivots5-4-3-2Come up a diminished from the thirdBe a movement playerMajor to the relative minorThe tunes you have to know

Transcript

  1. 0:05hello and welcome to Episode 34 of things I’ve learned from Barry Harris today I thought we would start on a series of episodes discussing movement or Barry calls movement so movement is basically from one chord moving to another chord and how we navigate through it with scales so today I thought maybe uh a movement that’s important that comes up a lot is the movement going from major to the relative minor so major is
  2. 0:38obviously the one chord and the relative minor is the six chord now we get there in a very specific way usually it’s the one chord and we’ll choose the key of f just to discuss it so it’s F major seven or F major 6 whichever you prefer then you play the seven chord of the key which in this key in F would be E minor 7 flat 5 then you’re going to play the three chord but you’re going to make it a dominant so let’s say we’ll just make it
  3. 1:12an augmented also we’ll have a sharp five in there so in the key of f it would be F major then e half diminished or E minor 7 flat 5 to A7 going to D Minor that’s our movement so now how do you practice that okay so the first thing we have to know a piece of information is how long for each chord so let’s say if we take Charlie Parker’s confirmation which is a uh a standard and it’s a song that uses this exact
  4. 1:45movement right at the beginning in this exact key so it would be F major for a measure and then a half a measure of E minor 7 flat 5 and a half a measure of A7 going into D Minor so it’s really like a full measure of f then a half a measure V half diminished half a measure A7 going into uh D Minor the way Barry approaches it as um a teacher what he does is he says okay let’s play our scales for that so with that amount of time we would have F major [Music]
  5. 2:17up and then for the eal diminish to A7 he sees that as not A7 like a normal A7 because it’s like a two5 going to a minor so he sees that as C7 scale down to the third of a so he’ll play a C7 scale down from the seventh and ending on the third of a so now you have this and as a guitar player you should probably know it in a few different
  6. 2:50spots you know or even here or even here just in the one octave so before you go any further with trying to work on things as a guitar player you should probably be able to play those two little scale passages which would be an F major scale up always go up to the major 7th only not to the tonic and then a C7 down from the flat 7th to the third of a and the third of a is um C so right there that’s one thing you should
  7. 3:24practice before you go any further once you get that and you get that comfortable in your instrument now we can move on and progress to try to create some phrases with it so we can use um a lot of the theory that Barry’s already given us to maybe come up with some things to do so something that we play on a major let’s say let’s say we came up a Triad from the tonic so there’s our first phrase so maybe we’ll say so let’s try that so that would be
  8. 4:02starting on F major and that’s starting on the end of the first beat so it’ be one two three 4 so all I did there was I played a Triad up from the tonic and now I started my C7 scale down now when I got to the third of um the A7 I played up a diminished and then just came down the
  9. 4:38scale to the um to the third and then the tonic of D Minor so we put something together one two 3 four there’s a phrase now that’s starting off the beat what if we started on the beat let’s see so let’s say 1 2 3 4 so to make it right I put in an eighth note triplet so we said one two 3 4 also a nice phrase and simply using
  10. 5:21the same two scales the F major scale I’m sorry three scales F major scale C7 scale down to the third of A7 came up and diminished these are little things that you start to piece together to create improvising lines so now let’s start let’s say on the fifth just to see what that’s going to sound like one two three four so that was just um starting on the fifth well let’s say I
  11. 5:58did let’s see one two three four I don’t remember what I did the first time but see there’s all little ways to get down to the third of a that’s a nice note to get down to or I could have started thinking right away since we’re going to C7 in down to the third of a I could have started on what is the fifth of f but instead of the fifth of f I’m thinking of it as the tonic of C7 and we know from previous episodes that the tonic of C7 or a tonic
  12. 6:34of any dominant you can run the scale down and put in one half step between tonic and seven so there we go now we’re down to the third so let’s try that one two [Music] three okay so let’s try now one half step again but right on the first beat 1 2 3 [Music] 4 okay again just using those two or
  13. 7:14three little elements that we’ve already worked on which is being able to play F major scale C7 scale into the third of a the rules for C7 scale with half steps and we’re already using them things that you do when you get to a thir third of the A7 which is like coming up a diminished or you know um uh which is so instead of playing you could have played so let’s try [Music]
  14. 7:50that so that was just a pivot which remember a pivot is just uh taking a thing starting on a note and instead of playing up you play those notes the rest of the notes uh an octave lower so instead of playing you play these and now you start an octave low so that’s another pivot we could have done that [Music] too but you see just practicing all this
  15. 8:28is just one movement practicing one going to the relative minor which happens in a lot of Standards now certain songs also you practice one going to the relative minor and it’s a little bit longer like if we were in the key let’s just change keys for a second we’ll go down a whole step to E flat and um uh [Music] so there will never be another U which
  16. 9:11is in uh E flat but there will never be another U has the same changes to it the only difference is it’s twice as long the movement so the E flat major or E flat 6 is going to be for two measures then you’re going to have one measure of its seven chord which is D Minor 7 flat 5 and you’re going to have one measure of G7 so now you have a little more time to play something on each thing so you have to be able to space your time out and feel what that feels like okay I got two measures of E flat now so I can play
  17. 9:45really a more complete or full phrase as opposed to what I was playing in um as what I was playing in confirmation which I only have one measure so now this is two measures of that so you’ll see there are songs that have going to the relative minor sometimes you get uh two bars of something to run into it sometimes you only get one bar of something so these are all things you have to be aware of and practice and feel what that feels like how does this feel like to play an E flat major for a full two measures before I get to
  18. 10:18thinking about D half diminish to G7 so in this case the scales would be E flat major but instead of only going up you have to go up and down because because you have two measures of it sorry and here since you have a measure of D Minor 7 flat 5 and then a measure G7 it’s going to be B flat 7 Up and Down to the thir of G so let’s try that so it’s going to be um E flat major up and
  19. 10:52down B flat 7 Up and Down to the third G so let’s hear what that sounds like [Music] then we’re going to end on C minor so in this case you have a lot longer time to play your EF flat major phrase and then a lot longer time to mess around to get down to the third of G7 if that’s what you want to do to play that scale so let’s try a few phrases like that [Music]
  20. 11:34anyway so that would be playing into the relative minor but you’re having a full um two measures how about if we do something 543 or something like that so let’s try [Music] that so let’s see let’s try that [Music] again so let’s let’s see which one did I do there I came down seven I put two half steps and then when I got down to five I did
  21. 12:07five then I did four so let’s [Music] see so even after I did four let’s see five I did I also did I also did three so at that time I did five four and [Music] three there you go came down to to the G
  22. 12:44but see that’s you have to learn to feel that length of time two bars of this a bar of this or a bar of this or just two bars of this two bars of this or just say leave it all I’m going to say I’m not even going to say anything on E flat and I’m immediately going to think of going to this change right away so I’m going to anticipate that change I’m going to start thinking about that right away let’s see what if I started on let’s say uh
  23. 13:19C which is the sixth of E flat but it’s also the second of B flat 7 so let’s say if I did two half steps [Music] let’s try that one but I got to come into it right so let’s [Music] say see I was thinking the whole time B flat 7 running into G7 the whole time or let’s think of it this way
  24. 13:54um let’s say uh let’s say two half steps one two [Music] 3 see that’s just playing again just thinking B flat 7 the whole way to G7 I know it’s kind of difficult to get the idea because you also have to have the chords in your head at the same time so you have to be thinking this the whole time sorry
  25. 14:33so you have to be hearing that in your head while you’re playing those changes and then the opposite is true also your line should be letting the listener hear those changes so that is the true art of improvising it’s being able to not only play with that with rhythm and everything in your head where you can even just play by yourself you don’t even need anybody to accompany you then you know you’re really doing it right or the opposite it is true where you also have to be able to think of the cords in your head and say okay let me make this clear for myself where am I in the where
  26. 15:09am I in the song where am I in the bar am I in the third bar am I in the fourth bar where am I on the beat am I on the second beat am I on the third beat I know these things can be a little bit overwhelming when you’re first starting or even as an intermediate it can be a little overwhelming and you know as musicians you want our ideas to just strive to get better but I I honestly feel like if you break things down to these type of things which is well I’m going to learn how to play a movement I’m going to learn how to play from one to relative minor I’m really going to
  27. 15:43practice that I mean there’s an endless amount of things you can practice on that we didn’t even get into trone or anything like that because it’s the video would last for an hour at least but this is the idea you take one movement and say okay today I’m going to practice going to relative minor and the reason that you do that is because it comes up in so many songs this is one of the reasons that Barry considers the standards these perfect vehicles for soloing because they are they truly are they’re perfect vehicles for solo that’s
  28. 16:16why Charlie Parker used them that’s why dizzy used them and all the great you know the great improvisers John Crain all the great improvisors use these to solo on so okay I hope that was helpful I’m going to continue in this fashion for the next couple of um episodes just to get maybe a foundation for you to start improvising maybe using some of the things that we’ve learned in our scale ideas in the past like from a major scale or from running a dominant scale or playing diminished and see if you can really put it together uh when
  29. 16:50playing changes or playing on a song or as Barry calls it playing movement so anyway I hope you enjoyed that and uh I look forward to uh hearing your uh seeing your comments and hearing what you have to say about it okay anyway until next time thanks